[gamblor956]

The whole point of the article was that EVs (in this case, specifically Teslas) are not yet ready to be driven like normal cars, i.e., without regard to planning refueling stops.

It's not clickbait, it's literally the point of the test and the resultant article.

[mikeash]

I'd like to see the opposite story: where a reporter drives an ICE car around town for a week and then it suddenly dies in the middle of the road because you have to go to a special station to refuel it instead of doing it in your garage every night.

It's true that road trips take a bit more care. (Although not much; all you have to do is put your destination into the car's navigation system, then make charging stops where it tells you to.) But "normal" cars aren't free of hassle either.

[dkonofalski]

You just hit the nail on the head. Anything can be made to seem like a hassle if framed a certain way and that's my problem with this article. Everything is framed to make it seem worse than it is while simultaneously ignoring the benefits.

[dkonofalski]

So it's ok for the article to be misleading and purposely misstate facts because the point of the article is sound? It's not sound. Plenty of people make those road trips with their Teslas and have tons of fun doing so.

[rconti]

EVs in general, and specifically NOT Tesla. If it was specifically about Tesla, she'd have used the superchargers exclusively and had a much better experience. OTOH, if she had used another EV with the same range, and not bothered to sign up for the various public charging networks' cards, she'd have had a much worse experience. This is.. a weird hodgepodge.

[izacus]

What exactly are you going on about? There are significantly less superchargers available in Europe, so how could she use them exclusively?

What's the use of a car that can only drive around a few places where superchargers exist?

[rconti]

There are 8 superchargers between Paris and Mannheim, no more than 160km between the furthest apart, and in most places there are 2 near each other. (just from looking at Tesla's map).

I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was trying to make a non-Tesla-specific example by also trying out other public charging stations, so that the article could analyze not JUST Tesla's network, but also the state of public charging in general.

If I wanted to be more critical, I'd have said it was stupid to bother trying to use other public charging facilities (other chargers or random wall outlets) when it would be far faster and more convenient (not to mention automatically planned for her) if she had just used the car's nav system to automagically plan the route and charging stops for her.

Your last sentence is not meaningful as there is no electric car that can only be driven "a few places where superchargers exist".

[gamblor956]

If I wanted to be really critical of your comments, I'd point out that she was quite frank about her article being about taking an EV on a European road trip, and just happened to choose a Tesla because it had the most range of the EVs available for rent. Because it was about EVs in general, she went out of her way to try and avoid using superchargers because those are Tesla-specific.

Her editor chose the headline, and presumably chose to specifically cite Tesla because it would draw in the eyeballs...which it did.

[rconti]

That's exactly what I was trying to point out.