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Comment by ajross

Define "middle of nowhere", I guess? Not a lot of places, even in Utah and Wyoming, are more than 100mi from an interstate. Also recognize that "a charger" is any building with an electrical drop. A regular 120v 15a plug in someone's wall will give you 100 miles of range in 6-7 hours. If they have a 240V dryer or cooktop or whatever you can cut that down to 1-2.

You can play with tools at https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ to get some guidance as to how this would work.

Broadly: EVs are absolutely going to be slower going on long road trips, but it's not that bad. A routine gas car trying to make good time will have an average driving pattern like "drive for four hours, stop for 15 minutes for gas/food/potty". So you're getting 16/17ths of your highway speed on average. A typical long range EV is more like "drive for two hours[1], stop at a supercharger for half an hour", which is more like 4/5ths efficiency. That's a net difference in average speed of 18%, or roughly the difference between someone on that interstate going 75mph vs. 65mph.

Is that a killer problem? Up to you to decide. It wasn't for me.

[1] The cars charge much faster with emptier batteries (just like your phone), so topping up isn't something you typically do on the road, you just put enough in to get to your next stop plus a safety margin.

parent ajross 5 years ago

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