xkcd

A few diesels in theory if you drive economically

It's the same mentality as V8 pickup buyers. But what if I need to tow my yacht one day? My truck was pretty damned convenient that day in 2017 when I had to move my brother-in-law's sofa!

This was something I realized when we drive to my wife’s parents. It’s 2,000 km each way from our house in the US to where they are in rural Quebec, Canada and we usually drive it twice a year. The charging times sound long, but even with our petrol car most of our stops end up being between 15 to 30 minutes anyways between fueling the car, taking the dog to grass, taking turns going to the toilet so the dog isn’t alone in the car, getting food and giving me a chance to eat so I’m not trying to drive and eat at the same time.

I think the real challenge of electric range anxiety is that it still takes planning, at least in some parts of the US. There are areas on our route where it might be 100 kilometers to the next fast charger, and there’s no guarantee that all of them will be working or compatible with a car’s fastest charging speeds. We don’t really have to think about where we’ll get gasoline; there’s pretty much always a station, often several, within the next few miles. Usually if we’re waiting to stop for fuel it’s because we’re looking for the best price, looking for a place that might have decent toilets, and/or might have an appealing food option along with the gasoline. That’s all manageable in electric but might need some advanced planning, and many American drivers aren’t used to doing that kind of route planning in advance anymore.

How many cars in Europe can drive 1,000 km without stopping anyways? The only ones I can think of offhand are large American pickup trucks intended for towing large trailers long distances. I wouldn’t expect to see them in Europe.

While growing up my family once a year would take a 20 hour car trip to visit extended family for a couple weeks then 20 hours back. Parents would do five hour shifts and get the whole thing done in one go. Shift changes meant refuel, bathroom, that's it. Other than that there was no stopping unless it was a "the next bump in the road I will 100% shit myself" kind of an emergency

Now personally I'd argue maybe we shouldn't have been taking road trips in that manner because it's like putting your body through a meat grinder. But if trips like that are someone's goal I doubt there are many charging stations in the middle of absolutely nowhere that can fully charge an EV in the time it takes to pee. I'm hoping though maybe a shift to EVs will change the way people approach long road trips to actually force them to take breaks

That doesn't affect how nice it is to drive though, not that I personally would want to touch a clutch pedal.

It depends where you live. We have cheap gas and I live in an area with one of the more expensive prices for electricity (and there are worse), but “filling up” at home is much cheaper than “filling up” my ice car.

However

• yes, we only have expensive EVs here. You can make up an extra $5k of purchase price with money saved on operations, but $10k or more is much harder
• trip chargers are already in a race for exploitation, profit seeking. Except for Tesla, prices are high, maintenance is low, and they compete for trapping customers more than attracting them
• since EVs became political we are currently off balance between supply and demand, so used cars are over supplied and lost much value. The quickly changing technology just makes it worse

This might actually be true, I think I misremember my calculations but I know I compared it some time ago, and realized it was way cheaper at home, and comparing the prices I pay outside and those, it might very well be the case