[WorldMaker]

A problem here is everyone's personal anecdotes are different. I have an uncle that has driven 10-12 hour hauls between Kentucky and Louisiana enough that he doesn't blink at doing it all in one day, with as minimal a break as possible.

On the flipside, I know that my limit before wanting to murder people and/or feeling bone-weary exhaustion is somewhere between 4-5 hours cumulative in a day, regardless of the number and length of breaks, but overall better with at least one >30-minute break every two hours and/or 15-minute every hour. (For me, EV's are clearly the present. I'm pretty happy within their travel limits.)

There's such a huge range of extremes with what people are comfortable with.

I've also met a lot of people that need more breaks than they actually take, but don't realize that self-care advantage yet. It's possible that forced, longer recharge breaks with an EV could be a good thing for overall road health. More drivers overall with slightly more opportunities to stretch and rest could be an amazingly useful thing for US traffic and calming some long distance road rage, given the chance.

[myself248]

You make some really good points here. I'm no stranger to long roadtrips; I do Detroit-to-NYC at least every few years, and I've gotten pretty comfy with Detroit-to-Orlando with an overnight stop. It's been a few years since doing Vegas straight-through with a co-driver, but I've done that a few times too.

The trips where I have plenty of time and can stop and go for a jog, or hike up some scenic terrain and take some photos, feel a lot safer than the ones where I'm nose-to-the-grindstone the whole time. I'm simply more focused when I get back in the car because I've had those minutes to let my mind and body wander.

I do feel like 15-20 minutes every 4-5 hours is a good and comfy amount of rest on a roadtrip. I've tried to do the 5-minute fuel stops and it just adds more stress than it's worth. Now, if more Supercharger stations happened to have a park or a gym nearby...

[WorldMaker]

I would think EV chargers should be a tourism gold mine in the near-ish future. A 20 to 30-minute-ish semi-captive audience should be making a lot of business owners drool right now.

I'd been considering for some time that if I were McDonald's corporate right now, I'd be examining EV chargers right now for a potential amenity to sell to franchisees (or possibly even to require from franchisees ahead of demand curves to create favorable headwinds).

I hadn't thought about gym chains, but that's also a great idea. "EV charging at any of our gyms around the country" / "Stop in on your next road trip" just might be an amenity that could sell some gym memberships.

[WorldMaker]

Thinking about McDonald's comment a bit more: McDonald's optimized for fast turnover, so maybe they aren't the best fit. Instead you might want a sit-down restaurant chain like one of Darden's, such as Olive Garden. Picture "Unlimited soup, salad, breadsticks, and EV charging."

It's funny because it could be evolutionary pressure back away from the drive-through model. You could even imagine the classic Drive-In model making a big comeback. A Sonic restaurant already looks like a modern EV charger facility from a distance. (Though personally, I don't ever eat in my car, so that has less appeal to me.)