tomato coupe

Utterly impossible? Hardly. 15 hours of driving with about 3 hours of charging gets you there in a Tesla 3.

Alan K

You are welcome to it - I’m not interested in adding 3 extra hours to my trip on an already a long day.

On major highways, if you are lucky, you might find available chargers with nominal wait times… but then you may get routed to another one, 10 miles away - not interested in this hopscotch.

We tend to enjoy less well travelled roads for our trips. It’s more fun to discover smaller towns on the way and stop for lunch at some local restaurant that looks interesting. Major interstates are by contrast, monotonous and boring. Doing this, as I mentioned, is impossible with a Tesla.

tomato coupe

You're still going to make re-fueling, bathroom, and food stops in a non-EV. Adding an hour or two to the trip for re-charging does not make it "utterly impossible".

Alan K

You are obviously ignoring the important part about the quality of my trip… in the last paragraph!
Why would you assume (or insist) that I eat at the charging station or a gas station whatever slop they happen to be serving!

tomato coupe

I'm not assuming anything -- you're moving the goalpost. Your statement was that it was utterly impossible to make the 1000 mile drive from Dallas to Minnesota in a day in an EV. That's pure nonsense.

RubeRad

Alan K

I should have been clearer in stating that it would be impossible for me.

Leisesturm

Not picking on you, but, how many times a week do you do the Dallas to Minnesota run? If the Planet is to survive we are going to have to make some modifications to our druthers for the good of the order. What if for the D to M you rented an ICE vehicle? What if you had no choice in the matter? Long before you want to, the governments of the (once) free world are going to FORCE drivers to rent from the available fleet of ICE vehicles for anything EXCEPT commuting and errands. Those functions will, of necessity be done with an electric vehicle. Or no vehicle at all. Our Planet is literally 'too big to fail'.

PeteHski

770 miles door to door. I’ve done this trip by Tesla and by conventional car several times. I’ll take the Tesla every time thanks.

There are Tesla Superchargers available (plus a whole load of other EV chargers) at roughly 50 mile increments throughout, so it’s not that challenging. Charging time is not really “wasted” time either on a long trip. But maybe you have to experience it for yourself to fully understand.

If your sole priority is to get 1000 miles from A to B in the fastest possible time then a gas powered car is going to win. But I’ve played that game in the past and it isn’t really very safe or pleasant. An EV forces you to take those breaks that you really ought to be taking anyway for your own benefit.

I’m well travelled and have a very good comprehension of US distances. Driving 1000 miles a day is not my idea of fun anywhere and especially not in the US.

Robert C

The thing is that the GPS in my car is frequently wrong. The thing it can not handle are School Zones. The problem there is that it is so hard to deal with something that has no set schedule (School days and zone hours are not the same throughout the country and even change year to year by the local districts e.g. the district I teach at has the first day of Lent off, just based on probability, I doubt your does). Yes, there are ways of dealing with it, and I am immediately going to a fringe case, but this is just an example.

That said, in general, I do like the idea. One problem that I think will eventually take care of itself. You would be surprised at the number of Baby Boomer generation drivers who honestly think that the Speed Limit is the Minimum Speed. It says MAX right on the sign, but a lot don't seem to get it. As I said, that seems to be a single generation and is going to take care of itself.

Like a lot of others, I have a GPS that chimes when I go over the speed limit (or at least when it thinks I am going over the speed limit). I think that would be a useful feature to have standard.

jon c. 

Not remotely consistent with what I see on the roadways.

Downright bizarre.

PeteHski

Yes I agree that there are edge cases to deal with, but with live road sign recognition and GPS mapping back-up it is rare for my car to display the wrong speed limit. Where speed limits are dynamic there needs to be active speed limit signage like we have here in the UK on variable limit roads. I drove through central London a few weeks ago, which has a lot of variable speed limits and the car picked up every single one. It’s probably better than the average human driver in that respect.

If the mapping and road signage are robust then there is no technical problem here. If your local speed limits are complicated, confusing and poorly signed then that is a different matter to deal with.

PeteHski

I thought that too. I just put it down to yelling at clouds. People often do drive right on the legal limit, but I wouldn’t say it was a baby boomer thing, whatever that actually is.

PeteHski

Here in the UK and Europe a lot of quality restaurants and hotels have complimentary EV charging. Tesla destination chargers are a good example. They typically charge much slower than high speed Superchargers, but you can pick up a reasonable free bonus charge while stopping for lunch. A modern Supercharger can typically fill your battery while you have a coffee and pee break every 250 or so miles.

Troul 

In my state, the MPH posted signs don't seem to be replaced 1 for 1 when they are damaged/beat up. The signs are likely being reduced in quantity just like the street lights (in, per mile) are less frequently noticed & installed when road "work" is being done.... I guess WRT the lights, it will bandaid the grids shortcomings for supporting more future dependency.

RubeRad

?? Absolutely consistent with San Diego freeways. Not sure it it's specifically a baby boomer thing, it's everybody. My wife gets furious if she's blocked by somebody on the freeway going exactly the speed limit, and Cthulu help them if they're 5mph under

tomato coupe

It was specifically citing baby boomers as the culprits that was bizarre.

RubeRad

ok yeah that is odd, and I think incorrect. Baby Boomers means my parents, and that's 70+ nowadays, those are going to be the slower drivers. But still out here always speed limit +5 at least

Alan K

I hadn’t noticed.

I understand old combustion engines run fine on moonshine.

To quote (paraphrase) one of the conductors of “Shiny Time Station” from his adult shows: Planet will be fine… it’s not going anywhere etc.

Alan K

It makes sense for you to use EV. But, in our case, reality of life is significantly different in many ways. We travel in the southwest region of our country frequently, love the area for camping and other outdoors activities. It is not uncommon to go 100 miles and not see another car ( not interstate highways). Individual states have signs on some roads indicating the next gas station 50 miles or whatever it might be. More uncommonly used roads do not have any posted signs. But these are the fun places to look for petroglyphs and fossils. No restaurants with free chargers in any of these areas yet, in some areas no restaurants, period.

Leisesturm

Right, the Planet isn't going anywhere. Or, more accurately, it will continue going towards whatever future this Solar System has in store. The fragile balance of economic/socioeconomic/and environmental systems that support Human Civilization will not be fine. No one thinks so. No one that doesn't have a vested ($$$) interest in the 1999 Status Quo.

tomato coupe

You moved the goalpost a long way, from the impossibility of EVs making a 1000 mile trip across the center of the U.S. to their unsuitability in remote areas of the country.

Alan K

There are no goal posts, except perhaps the once you constructed in your imagination.
Some people (like us) do travel all over and enjoy the outdoors wherever they like to be; they don’t need blessings of BF participants.

Alan K

In the context of planetary life, human existence is inconsequential (unless you subscribe to the story of earth being a few thousand years old), so that is essentially a moot point.

During tulip mania days, people thought it was a fantastic investment… and some people greatly benefited from it.
We shall see who will be the beneficiary of this new thing and for how long.
The long-term prospects of EV are not exactly perfectly solid but what do I know about such complex things, I only like bicycles with pedals so far, haven’t even graduated to an electric bicycle.

tomato coupe

No one condemns you for your travel habits or your love of the outdoors. But, your posts are a perfect example of moving the goalpost.