[11402101]

Supercharging network should be irrelevant in my mind. If you need to drive more than 200 miles away, you need ICE. Assuming you could get a 100% full charge in 30 minutes at a supercharger, and 210 miles of range at 60mph, you are driving 3.5 hours and standing around for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, ICE can get you 400 miles, or 6.5 hours of driving at 60mph, on a 15 minute gas fill up. Electrics are great for a lot of reasons, but long road trips in a Model 3 is going to be a lot of time staring at clouds.

[bdunn]

I own a Model S and have clocked 23k miles on it over the last year, most of which on long roadtrips.

I love it. The car mostly drives itself between superchargers, and the SCs are usually next to coffee shops or restaurants. I don't mind getting up and stretching / having a drink every few hours.

But if minimizing recharging/refueling is your main priority, yeah, you can't beat ICE.

[rconti]

As a high performance driving enthusiast, I am very receptive to electric cars. I've hammered on the Roadster and Model S pretty hard on close courses, and instruct others. I put money down on a Model 3 today.

That said, "15 minutes to refuel" an ICE is way overstated; it's more like 5 tops, including a piss break and cleaning the windshield. I don't disagree that the supercharger setup is great (I have a friend who does deployments), and it would come in handy for my regular bay area<->san diego roadtrips. That said, Tejon Ranch to San Diego is kind of pushing it on a slightly lower range S, and 2x 30min stops is non-trival for most people. I just finished a 4000mi southwest roadtrip (incidentally, a piss break in BFE Utah had me at an unexpected supercharger station), and we're a ways from where I'm comfortable doing such a trip on electricity. But that's fine -- that's my hangup, not a technical problem, and not something that can't be solved relatively soon. If electric adoption continues to ramp up as quickly as it has, finding a station won't be an issue, it'll just be a minor inconvenience to spend 25 mins more charging up -- which, again, is probably a worthwhile tradeoff for lower operating costs, and considering that 98% of customer miles involve regular end-of-day recharges.

Incidentally, my quickest roadtrip was down the west coast at an average speed of 75mph; 900 miles in about 11h with only a single fuel stop. By stopping in Oregon, where the clerk fills your car for you, I was able to receive a full tank of fuel, a piss break, and a gas station hotdog and soda in approximately 2 minutes' time. YMMV :)

[mikeash]

I love how every time I bring this up, somebody feels the need to mansplain to me how impractical it is in reality, as if I'm not speaking from experience.

I've driven my Model S on several long trips, including DC to Florida and back this winter. I'm planning a trip to Montreal this summer. At no point in this do I wish I had an ICE car for the trip, let alone "need" one. In fact, there's no other car (except maybe a Model X) I'd rather do this sort of trip in.

If you're the sort of person who grabs a sandwich while gassing up and eats it behind the wheel, like the commenter down below, then yes, the need to charge is going to really mess with you. But if you're the sort of person who still sits down for your meals during road trips and takes reasonable bathroom/stretch breaks, it hardly makes a difference.

Does the need to charge slow you down? Yes. Does it slow you down a lot? No. Does it mean you "need ICE" for any long trip? Absolutely not. In my experience, it slows you down by something like 10-15%. In exchange, you get a smooth, quiet ride that doesn't leave you tired at the end of the day's driving.

[11402101]

I'm not trying to "mansplain" to you at all, whatever that means, but it is always a joy to have your comments dismissed through meaningless terms by a Tesla owner. Being dismissive of others for having a differing opinion is just unproductive to turning people towards Tesla.

I am just trying to point out that to some people, standing and pointing at superchargers as some viable way to make it cross country is really dreadful, and yet people still try to sell them as though they are the most amazing thing. I have also recently driven from DC to FL. In all, it was about 1000 miles one-way. I had to stop for gas twice, filled up when I got there, and filled up twice on the way back. Let's say that adds 30 minutes each way to a 14 hour trip (and yes, you can certainly fill up, use the rest room, and sit down to eat in 15 minutes - it's not a 5 course meal, it's a roadtrip). If I compare that to having to stop every 200 miles - again assuming that you could get a 100% charge in 30 minutes, which AFAIK you don't, you get to 80% or so - you would need to stop 4 times on the way for 30 minutes each. You have now arrived 1.5 hours later than I did.

And honestly, what do you do for 30 minutes at each of these stops? If you left at 9am, you would stop for lunch at noon, second lunch at 3pm, dinner at 6, and second dinner at 9 in a Tesla. And then you're saying "you get a smooth, quiet ride that doesn't leave you tired at the end of the day's driving", but honestly, just buy a nicer car. What are we comparing, a $75000 Tesla and a $15000 Kia? There are so many wonderfully comfortable ICE cruisers out there, test drive an Acura TLX, quiet and comfortable, same price as a Tesla 3 with double the range.

I feel like we are in the early days where people really try to downplay and apologize for the charging issues on electric cars, but it's not the way it has to be. Musk showed that very amazing 'drive up battery replacement' thing awhile back, and then it just died. How awesome would it have been if that became reality, rather than just plunking down superchargers every couple hundred miles?

Sorry I don't mean to rant, it's just incredibly awkward trying to point things out when Tesla owners/fanboys are so excited and dismissive of anybody who prefers to drive with an ICE.

[mikeash]

It's fine if you want to express a differing opinion. Where we have a problem is when you say stuff like "you need ICE." That's not a differing opinion, that's you making a blanket statement that includes me and is clearly wrong. Having a differing opinion is fine, trying to force that opinion on people who aren't you is a problem. Had you said, "It's not for me, I don't like stopping that often" then I wouldn't have even felt a need to reply. You talk about Tesla owners dismissive of anybody who prefers to drive an ICE, but I didn't do that. In fact, I explicitly called out a set of drivers who would have good reason not to like road trips in a Tesla. You're the one dismissing people who disagree, not me.

And then here you go, telling me about hypothetical numbers you've run for an actual trip I did. You want to know what mansplaining means? That's a perfect example. You're explaining something to me that I already know and that you know I know, and acting like you know it better than I do. You conclude that whole thing with "You have now arrived 1.5 hours later than I did" as if this is some sort of interesting new fact. I already said in my comment that charging slows you down by 10-15%. So what's even the point of restating that?

You actually stop more often for somewhat less time, because you charge faster at the lower end of the battery. Ideally, you arrive at 0% and charge just enough to get to the next charger. In reality you want a margin, but typical stops are more like arriving at 10-20% and leaving with 70%. I believe we stopped to charge 7 times on the way down, and 9 times on the way back (one extra was because we detoured to Orlando, and one was unnecessary but we stopped at the Costco in Woodbridge, VA and decided to take advantage).

What do you do at each stop? Well on the way down, at Richmond we bought a Christmas present. That stop was definitely just lost time. At Rocky Mount, we had lunch. At Lumberton, we used the bathroom and bought some snacks. At Santee we had dinner. At Savannah we didn't have much to do. The next day, we stopped at Kingsland, used the bathroom, and waited. At Port Orange, we had lunch. At West Palm Beach, we waited.

Is it ideal? Obviously not. Is it perfectly fine for many people? Yep. You mention Tesla's battery swap program. Do you know why it died? Because it's just not very popular among owners. Superchargers are good enough. They actually built a swap station along the busy LA-SF corridor, and it just doesn't get enough use to justify expansion.

Now, if you take a look at my description of the stops and say, ouch, that's not what I'd want to do, then that's totally fine. Just don't try to tell me what I need. If you find it "incredibly awkward" to point out to Tesla owners that this sort of thing isn't good enough for everybody, maybe it's because you're saying that it isn't good enough for anybody. If that's not what you intended to say, then you need to work on how you're saying it.