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Must be a perception thing. One way isn't "long" in the sense that its only 300 miles. Its 'long' to drive SF to Las Vegas. Basically any drive over about 480 miles of freeway starts getting long.

That being said, the 'long trip' scenario is somewhat of red herring. If you regularly travel several hundred miles a day then an all electric car is probably unlikely to meet your vehicle requirements. If its an occasional (once a year) kind of thing then creative solutions might arise to address it.

Were the Tesla guys willing to put a high power plug in the back I could imagine a 'trailer' which held a generator and a gas tank and provided power all the way there.




Until those "creative solutions" have materialized and hit the market, we have to work within the constraints that we have to live with.

As someone with a family, my requirements for a family car need to cover the possibility of extended road trips. Sure, I know that in theory I could just rent a gas car for that, but I know in practice that it won't happen. So "able to handle long road trips" is solidly in my personal list of firm requirements for a family vehicle. Sure, I don't need to do it every day. But it is something I need that vehicle to do.


I get that it doesn't work in your particular case. Early adopters will fund the research to get the cost of energy storage down and energy density up.


There's actually 5 charging stations that Tesla installed on the 101 between SF and LA. If we got serious about electric cars, higher charging station density would help with long trips.

And I agree, SF<->LA is not a long drive.




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