abasile said:
GRA said:
Glad it works for you. Personally, that's way too much unnecessary dwell time for me on my typical road trips.
I suppose everyone has to make their own personal choice as to how much inconvenience is tolerable in order to use an EV for long road trips. Even if every fuel stop already takes at least half an hour because of kids, etc., a downside of relying on Superchargers today is that they aren't everywhere that one can currently find gasoline. As more fast chargers come online, they'll better correspond with our human pitstop needs, but that'll take time.
Indeed, we all differ in our toleration for inconvenience. I don't have kids and my pit stops are typically spaced by the capacity of my still in good condition bladder. Every four hours on a typical trip is acceptable, although if necessary I can go 6-8 in my current car (which is usually more important for being able to make a round trip without needing to pay mountain monopoly prices for fuel en route). The range is useful not just for going non-stop, but also, as you say, when combined with multiple options for charging gives me the choice of where I stop to eat. If I can get to Lee Vining non-stop, I can choose to eat in Oakdale, Groveland, Tuolumne Meadows or Lee Vining if desired, assuming that QCs will eventually be available in all of them (not likely in Tuolumne). It's still a lot less convenient than a five minute stop for fuel anywhere and eat whenever/wherever/however I please, but acceptable.
abasile said:
The way I see it is that we aren't exactly out on the road all of the time, so a bit of added inconvenience from time to time seems like a small price to pay for the pleasure of driving electric and to reduce fossil fuel dependency. I like the spirit of the couple from Victoria, BC who just drove their Model X all the way across Canada (see http://TeslaXCanada.com), with huge gaps in the Supercharger network, towing a camping trailer. While I'm not saying that everyone needs to tolerate the many extra hours of en-route charging that they required, not to mention spend north of $100K on a Model X, it's great that there are people who are willing to be pioneers and early adopters. The more, the merrier!
Trips taken once or occasionally for the adventure of it are fine, but not practical usage for most people given more convenient, faster and often less expensive options. In my case, patience has never been a strong suit, and since my recreational time is limited until I retire, wasting as little of it as possible just getting to where I recreate is a priority. On my most recent trip I spent from 1/2 to 25 hours parked at five trailheads, none of which had any electric service. The lack of electric infrastructure is typical of the places I recreate. Without conveniently located en-route QCs, even Gen 2 BEVs simply aren't practical for me.
I did the early adopter bit with its attendant high costs and (lesser) inconvenience with RE, and have no desire to do so again with EVs; I'll leave that to others who possess both the money and motivation. Until they reach the stage of general practicality, with adequate range and plentiful places to charge where I need them, I'll rely primarily on the small daily inconvenience of commuting by bike and walking for errands along with living 'smaller' to reduce my fossil fuel use.
abasile said:
Personally, even though I'm not a super frequent poster here, I'm pretty sure that I spend more time on EV forums than I do charging our range-degraded 2011 LEAF. And we've made a number of 150 - 200 mile roundtrips in recent months, down from 6100' to near sea level and back up. Rather than simply waiting around at chargers, I suppose one option could be to abstain from visiting forums (or some other, preferred Internet time suck) for a week or two prior to each road trip, then use the charging stops to catch up.
Not really an option for me at the moment, as cell or wi-fi service is just as lacking as any other type of electric infrastructure where I typically am on trips. I did read and post some from the June Lake library on my recent trip, as I killed a couple of hours waiting for a trail to get some shade so it would be an enjoyable hike instead of a re-enactment of the Bataan Death March
, but that was in the nature of an exception that proves the rule.