You can get a base model 3 today with 263 to 353 miles of range. That's upwards of 3-4 hours of driving with no breaks. Stop to take a break at a super charger for 30 minutes and you can do another 3-4 hours.
How is this still no practical especially combined with all the time and money they save not having to do most routine maintenance.
Edit: On the plus side, charging at home at night every evening is really nice compared to a weekly gas station visit.
Charge started a 143 kW (on a 150 kW unshared charger) and I ended it 10 minutes later while it was at 80 kW. This was enough to drive 130km to home (non highway) with about 20% battery left so 130 Wh/km.
When I travel on highway I stop at all superchargers, they're usually 1h to 2h of highway driving apart in my country (France), so similar experience.
I don't think a lot of commenters here have much experience living in rural environments.
This doesn't even begin to touch on the ability to repair the vehicles.
I'm sure they have complicated electronics, but most modern cars do as well and those aren't components people typically work on.
Just consider the electric vehicle has no transmission, no drive train, no oil. It doesn't have most of what cars have under the hood.
Pretty much all modern brushless power tools, while mechanically simpler than their brushed cousins, require a full motor and control module replacement when something as simple as the switch fails.
Don't get me wrong, I do believe that electric propulsion is the future for efficient transport and that gas isn't a long-term solution going forward. It just seems to me the marketing and hype have gotten ahead of the current offerings, and I worry the 'scrap it and get a new one' approach employed often by tech companies will end up being applied to cars as well.
There is no extra capacity producing spare parts to sit on shelves.
The electric motor is simpler than an ICE, yes.
OTOH, a modern (and by modern I mean anything in the last ~30 years) ICE engine is supremely reliable, so it's a wash.
Most repair time isn't from having to fix the engine or motor anyway, it's the whole rest of the car.
We have a a Fiat 500e (EV) now sitting it's fourth week (not continuous) at the dealer to get window regulator problems fixed. Those types of problems have nothing to do with whether the car was an EV model or the ICE model.
Source? Supposedly the F-150 Lightning numbers are including 1000 lbs of cargo. So a full cabin of people still supposedly getting the stated 300 miles on a full charge (For the extended range.)
Now compare that to the LandCruiser that we haul race cars with… the LC always gets 14 mpg, we have filled it with 6 adults going to Tahoe, same MPG. Haul a 2700lbs sports car. Doesn’t change at all.
Honestly an EV would be nice for hauling stuff to the track, hopefully with the race car, and equipment it can make it to Willows on a single charge, at least the track has RV hookup points, can charge while you race.
This is physically impossible unless the LandCruiser is just throwing energy away when empty.
What's more likely is that this estimate is not very precise.
Of course we are talking about towing a light sports car here. Tow a different type off trailer, or a very heavy load and the losses will start to catch up.
"Applying these results to the F-150 means that towing a modest trailer would put the highway range at roughly 100 to 125 miles, depending on the pack. Towing anywhere near the 10,000-pound maximum rating on XLT and Lariat models (with the maximum trailer tow package and extended-range battery) at highway speeds, we believe you'd be hard pressed to exceed double-digit miles."
I don't want to stop for food, order, wait, eat, get in the car, drive to who knows where for a charger, and then start charging for 30 minutes.
(i am also advocating with policy makers to outlaw new petroleum filling station permits/infrastructure, but that is a topic for another thread. i am applying YC startup school lessons to public policy efforts. please excuse the dust while the electrification of transportation ramps)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_fossil_fuel_vehic...
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
It's not "who knows where". Your car knows where and its right off the interstate in a parking lot next to a lot of places to eat. Better than most gas stations actually.
You want to eat while you charge? Get food next to your charger. They have already thought of all this when they were spending billions of dollars on building out charging infrastructure
All the ones we stopped at in Canada were near food as well
Your car is done charging before you get your Big Mac and eat it.
[0] https://kempower.com/information-center/news/kempowers-leadi...
That's not what you do... You stop at the charger and then go get food or take a break at the store that's right next to it.
Don't you also have to stop, eat, and then drive somewhere to get gas?.
Right now I can choose what I want to eat, find one of those restaurants and fill up there. You can't pretend as if the opposite (planning around where my car wants to go, and eating what happens to be there) is the same thing.
Nor can you pretend that it is just as convenient to spend an hour and 5 minutes waiting for my car to charge when I normally spend 10 minutes max filling it up.
Do you normally go through Bloomington? Both Google Maps and the A Better Route Planner say it's faster to go through Indianapolis.
But from Cincinnati to WI (the route I’m talking about) I always go through Indianapolis. I used the default car. Didn’t think much about the range differences, but you’re right. That makes a big difference.
> There are, apparently no super-chargers between Cincinnati and Indianapolis
If you commute like most Americans (26 minutes), then you just charge at home and never think about it. I don't think people realize that most Telsa owners don't use public chargers.