Same here. We had a hybrid and an EV. We sold the hybrid and now have two EVs. We rarely take road trips, but we did go for 10 days last year in our Tesla Model X and it was a easy and efficient. If a particular trip wasn’t feasible with an EV, I’d probably fly.
Mitsubishi Montero, anyone? That was before they realized you needed to widen the wheel base.
Ahh, ok. The Forester is based on an Impreza, but is an oddball for Subaru in that the body is quite a bit taller than any version of the Impreza, and has more cargo volume as a result (mostly vertical). The length of it and the hatchback Impreza are within five inches of each other, though.
The wagon would most likely have been a Legacy wagon, which is a bit longer. As mentioned before, the SUV version would be the Outback.
I’d be a little surprised if you speaker stands wouldn’t fit in the hatchback Impreza. My WRX hatchback can carry my Ampeg 2x15 “refrigerator” speaker cab (26"W x 48"H x 16"D) just fine with room left over for a 300W tube bass head, two basses, a couple of keyboards and their stand. Of course, I could fit just about all of that in my Fit (fit in a Fit, heh, heh, heh), as well. So your speaker stands may be a bit more gargantuan than the ones I’m used to.
Especially on the way out, stopping for lunch is something like a drive-thru or going it to pee & purchase before getting back on the road, eating enroute. Nothing I hate more than spending x hours enroute but needing to add 30, 45, or even more minutes wasted sitting & eating not making any progress toward destination/home.
Occasionally, if really tired, I’ll sit & eat quickly to get a break from driving; even then, I’m usually back on the road in 15 mins.
What about an EV makes it a more pleasant trip than an ICE?
I’ll suggest the charging network in @Spiderman’s US northeast and @hajario’s Southern California are probably rather different as well.
The future is arriving. But very unevenly. Pennsylvania’s current charging network may most resemble California’s from 2010.
WAG: vibration and noise. Some people are very sensitive to that. I find the only noise I hear is the wind noise, which is pretty much the same in an ICE or EV of similar age & snootiness.
IME, it feels smoother. I had to drive an ICE some while back, after several months with the EV, and it felt like I had to push it to make it go. My EV has a nice soft touch (I drive in “Sport” mode because it gives more regen) and gives me full power (e.g., for passing) without growling. I understand how some people equate growling with power, but I have come to appreciate the near-silent thrust that I get when I need it.
Not everyone, fortunately, drives like me. I have a relaxed mode, I do not drive here, I drive up there, and so tend to get more regen than a typical American while being less stressed out by that guy’s rear bumper that is (not) right in front of me.
The only issue for me is when I have to charge on the road, but that is a matter of planning. Granted, there are places I would like to go in, say, Wyoming, where the spread of places to charge is limiting, but I am hoping for that to gadually improve. Spending 45 minutes to go from 15-80% (my vehicle charges slowly – highest I have ever seen is 70kW) does not bother me, and that gives me around 200+ miles. Finding working, available chargers is the only issue. And, at home, I can charge at level 2, almost never having to use a commercial charger.
Previously, we travelled much like you described, trying to reduce every minute of total drive time. Now it’s more relaxed.
Firstly, no need to fill up the tank or check fluids for the trip. The battery is ‘filled up’ while we’ve slept.
We generally select Supercharger locations that are about 2 hours apart, and have a convenience store with clean bathrooms. The 2 hour distance closely matches our need to empty bladders, and the need to walk around a bit. Instead of spending minutes pumping gas, we spend 5 seconds plugging in, then we pee, shop for a snack, check email. By the time we’re back to the car, there’s usually just 5 minutes of charging left.
Then there’s the noise, or lack of it. This allows the radio to be set lower, and conversations quieter. This isn’t really noticeable by the minute but I reach my destination noticeably more relaxed. I realize this travel mode won’t work for everyone. Before our EVs, I wouldn’t have guessed that I’d enjoy this pace.
I’ll also suggest that all of us are getting older.
As a 20yo, the idea of a 24-hour straight drive to someplace sounds perfectly reasonable. As a 60-something, the idea of a mere 12-hour drive is scary to some folks and 8 hours is more some peoples’ max.
Not me. And I suspect not @Spiderman.
There is no way I’d tolerate stopping every two hours for 20 minutes. Even now at my post-retirement age that’s insane. A mere three of those stops would waste an hour! I’d much rather run straight through and be there an hour sooner. There is nothing relaxing about going slowly; I’m climbing the walls every second I’m not hauling ass or already there.
As a 20 year old, i drove 24 hours to get from Boston to Miami. And back. And swore I’d never do that again. I fly when I’m traveling that kind of distance.
Our the trip I mentioned earlier, we stopped much less than every two hours.
I take very few long trips via a car. (less than once per year). When I do, I’m in no hurry. I drive around the speed limit, and don’t mind stopping for 15 or 20 minutes every few hours. When I was younger, I felt more like you do.
Yeah.
I had not intended that to get quite as ranty as it became. Oops on me. Thanks to you both for the mild pushback.
My real point was that e.g. @Capn_Carl may be quite happy with slow progress and lots of long stops. But IMO that’s more about his inner old guy than it is about some great advantages of EVs. His hypothetical 25yo grandkid would find the same EV-imposed pace quite intolerable.
Perhaps better said another way:
EVs naturally make good geezermobiles for roadtrips. The cars’ limitations align well with the drivers’ limitations. That’s less true for 4 college kids trying to max-perform their long weekend 1000 miles away in Vegas or wherever.
My ideal stop is slightly less than once every 2 hours, but definitely not for 20 minutes. I’ve timed it. Even with the time it takes to attend to your gas vehicle’s progress, the entire process from getting off the interstate to getting gas to using the restroom takes 10 minutes for me at most.
If the charging stop were relaxing, like at least as pleasant and quiet as the average good Interstate rest stop, then every other stop I wouldn’t mind walking around for a bit and checking emails. But I’d still prefer to have the option not to, and I’ve never seen a gas station that was pleasant to be around.
Even with the maximum penetration foreseeable for chargers in my lifetime, I don’t imagine a road trip with electric being as convenient as ICE in most situations, where I will be driving significantly more than the charge range at once without deliberately stopping. It would be another story if I were only driving slightly more than the charge range, because then I could just top up whereever I could and still get to my destination safely, or if I stopped at an intermediate destination to do something, and the place had a charger.
Our routine “long” car trip is about 375 miles. It’s faster with our EV rather than our ICE when you add up the total time involved with the trip: Fueling up both vehicles before, during and after the trip along with the stop required for a meal and dog outing each direction.
Even as something like a 30yo at the time, I cheerfully drove my 280Z at insanely fast speeds between Toronto and Montreal, not giving a damn about speeding tickets (which, fortunately, in that particular trip, I didn’t get).
Today, as I noted in the April rants Pit thread, I refuse to drive even from my little idyllic suburb into the heart of the Big City to pick up a super heavy UPS battery. I’d rather just junk the thing.
Life is different as one gets older.
It’ll be interesting to see what Tesla’s earnings report is tomorrow after market.
Yeah, I used to take one to two week-long trips across the American west and southwest, occasionally well off the beaten path on logging roads and the like, sometimes driving ten-twelve hours a day (then stopping in one spot for 2-3 days, then another ten hours). I suspect the charging network is still not quite there to enable that across some of that range (I could be wrong) and that kind of marathon run doesn’t really work with even fast chargers at this point in time.
But I haven’t done that in years and I’m kinda doubting I could anymore. I’m guessing six or less might be more my limit these days. So sorta a moot point.
But, his other hypothetical 23yo grandkid has a much more laid-back attitude and would be fine with it. Age is not necessarily a determining factor.
I have been doing a semi-frequent 200 mile trip, and my car handles it straight through (in moderate weather, I can do it with 30%SoC left when I get there). If we do get some of the tech advancements on the horizon, typical EVs will have 500 mile range and faster charging,which will start breaking down the resistance, ohm my.
You may be right, here.
OTOH, there’s the dozens of times per year when I’m not leaving town, and the fillups effectively take 0 minutes.
China and the rest of the world will get the advances, but we won’t get them in the US.
CATL has launched a new LFP EV battery with very impressive charging rates. Depending on the source it may be able to add 300 miles in 5 minutes, or possibly 0-80% (or 5-80%) in 15 minutes in the cold. Despite different sources reporting different measures of how fast it charges, it does appear to be a real product, not just a lab result. It is supposed to appear in 60+ different EVs by the end of the year.
I don’t mean to sound anti-EV. I wish they made what i want (1000 hp convertible 2 door) and I bet they will soon. At which point I’ll buy it and never look back at primitive ICEs.
My perspective on road trips is formed in the wide open Southwest where 200 miles gets you to the next one horse town and every worthwhile road trip begins before dawn and ends after sunset. All at extra-legal speeds.