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I don't know if I'd amend that statement that far. Even if there's a supercharger on the route, we haven't yet talked about the time required to let the car cha

by kylec 11y ago

I don't know if I'd amend that statement that far. Even if there's a supercharger on the route, we haven't yet talked about the time required to let the car charge back up for the remainder of the journey. If you're on a 400 mile road trip, you can drive the first 250 or so on a fully charged Tesla, but then you'll need to stop for a half hour at a Supercharger and let your car charge up to get the remaining 150 miles. If there's no Supercharger around and you need to stop at a conventional EV charger, be prepared to wait an hour or more. Because of the non-trivial time increase once you go beyond the initial range of the car, I know I'd be less likely to want to take trips beyond it, even if they were technically doable.

mikeash 11y ago
OK, then add "and take reasonable breaks" to the amendment. Stopping for 20-30 minutes every 150 miles or so isn't a burden for most people. Some people really like to push. But you really should be stopping that long, that often, regardless of what you're driving. People don't always do it, but they should. As I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, the impact of charging time really depends on what you do in that time. If you can time your charging to coincide with a meal, for example, then the actual penalty from charging is zero. If you're doing a 400 mile road trip and you can make your supercharging stop your lunch stop, then you'll lose less time to charging than you'd lose to filling the tank of a gas car. Obviously that's a big if and it's not at all guaranteed, but the point is that this isn't an absolute, and "30 minutes to charge" shouldn't be thought of as being the equivalent of "30 minutes to fill the gas tank." Personally I love long trips in the Model S. Part of that is just because the car is extremely comfortable and easy to drive, which makes long trips much less tiring. I'm sure that would come with other cars in that price range too, so not something that's exclusive to Tesla. The extra charging time has not so far been at all an issue. I've made three trips beyond the range of the car in the six months I've had it, and my total time spent waiting for the car to charge is zero. I'm sure that will start to become non-zero when I want to do, say, 500 miles in a day, but I still look forward to longer trips in it more than I did in my previous cars.

by kylec 11y ago

mikeash 11y ago

OK, then add "and take reasonable breaks" to the amendment. Stopping for 20-30 minutes every 150 miles or so isn't a burden for most people. Some people really like to push. But you really should be stopping that long, that often, regardless of what you're driving. People don't always do it, but they should. As I mentioned in a comment elsewhere, the impact of charging time really depends on what you do in that time. If you can time your charging to coincide with a meal, for example, then the actual penalty from charging is zero. If you're doing a 400 mile road trip and you can make your supercharging stop your lunch stop, then you'll lose less time to charging than you'd lose to filling the tank of a gas car. Obviously that's a big if and it's not at all guaranteed, but the point is that this isn't an absolute, and "30 minutes to charge" shouldn't be thought of as being the equivalent of "30 minutes to fill the gas tank." Personally I love long trips in the Model S. Part of that is just because the car is extremely comfortable and easy to drive, which makes long trips much less tiring. I'm sure that would come with other cars in that price range too, so not something that's exclusive to Tesla. The extra charging time has not so far been at all an issue. I've made three trips beyond the range of the car in the six months I've had it, and my total time spent waiting for the car to charge is zero. I'm sure that will start to become non-zero when I want to do, say, 500 miles in a day, but I still look forward to longer trips in it more than I did in my previous cars.