| >> 98% of trips are under 50 miles. Only 0.8% of the trips are over 100 miles! Sure, ubiquitous charging will be enormously helpful to adoption, and universal rapid charging also. But the reality is it doesn't yet exist. Until then, just because long trips are lower frequency does not mean they are less important or can be ignored as a requirement, particularly if a person/family has only one vehicle. The long trips may be the most important trips, maybe to see family only a few times a year... Plus, even though you might be able to rationalized away the long range requirement, generations of people are accustomed to cars yielding 4-600 miles between fill-ups. It is not only the ability to drive on a long trip, but also the need to only fill up your car every 1-3 weeks instead of every day or two. Desirable Range between fill-ups is also a human-factors issue. You want the range of the car to be at least, indeed around, the distance people can drive in a single stint. If you can drive 350 miles in 4.5 hours, and your car gets that distance, you're probably OK resting and filling up. If it goes 1000 miles between fill-ups, that isn't a big advantage. But if the car makes you stop before you feel you need to stop, that will feel like the car is not good enough for your needs. So, sure, if we suddenly got 2500 Wh/kg batteries and could easily make cars with a 1000-mile range, and manufacturers offered 1000, 500, and 100-mile ranges, I'd expect the most sales to be in the 500-mile units. |