It's not all that irrational for... some electric vehicles. Probably not the Tesla Model S, though.

I mean, I normally drive (much) less than 200 miles per day, and I'm sure that 99% of my driving would be fine with a 200 mile range electric vehicle.

But when I do want to go farther, well... I mean... I actually want to go farther. I want to go skiing sometimes, and there is no skiing within 200 miles of me. I don't particularly want to spend even 30 minutes recharging along the way, either -- it's a long day without additional delays.

When I went down to visit my sister when she was in LA, and again when she was up in Eureka, or my family in Mendocino, those are important trips to me. They aren't my usual use profile, but a significant part of the value of the cars I get is that they CAN meet my less usual needs as well as my more usual ones.

Now, all that said, the Tesla Model S is a $50,000 to $100,000 car. Its owners have options. Probably well over 95% of Model S's sold are to multi-car households. And at the very least, its owners are clearly wealthy enough to do something like "go to Enterprise and rent a SUV for their ski-trips, without worrying about a few hundred dollars a few times a year."

On the other hand, I don't think that most of the interest around the Model S is driven by the S per se. I think a lot of people are using it as a proxy for "a future, less expensive car that has similar range." And then we're back to people who can't necessarily buy their hypothetical future EV as a second car, retaining a household gas car for their road trips, or renting one with their large disposable income.

There is something to be said for a vehicle that works just as well for a trip to the grocery store as a trip across the U.S. The thinking is that I can have one car that does everything I need, rather than two cars or one car + renting. Two cars doubles your costs and renting, while possibly reasonable cost-wise, is hugely inconvenient compared to just getting in your car and going.

An electric car would be fine for me, even with a range of just 100 miles (in a Minnesota winter, with the heater on). The 265 miles that the Model S can get would be questionable for my parents, though, given the frequency of long trips they take. They would need charging stations in the same order of magnitude as gas stations to avoid range anxiety.

I don't think range anxiety is irrational. I may be that I only need extended range in 5% of my driving, but unless I own a second vehicle or am prepared to rent a vehicle for that 5%, it essentially makes a it a non-starter. In other words, it doesn't matter how infrequent those edge cases are, if they are necessary and without reasonable workarounds, then the design is a failure (for this specific use case.)

Now, I'm in one of the more sparsely populated states in the union, so my views and needs are colored by long distances it takes to get anywhere here.

To be clear: range anxiety is not irrational because no-one should be concerned about range. Range anxiety is irrational if and when someone is giving outsize importance to the edge cases.

It's specifically about the people who don't do an objective analysis of how often the edge cases happen, whether alternatives are sufficient, etc.

I'm just surprised that now, at this time, Elon is attempting to tackle the range issue head on. It really seems a bit early to do that. I agree that for the people who have a serious issue with range (even for only a small percentage of their trips) the current solution isn't going to be sufficient. I'm interested to see where this goes. But I'd like to have seen a different type of vehicle come after the roadster. Something more reasonable than the S in size, weight, performance and price.

What's unreasonable about the S in terms of size? It's a pretty typical sedan, isn't it?

I don't think it was ever possible to go straight from the Roadster to a car that was, say, $30,000. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd have liked it as well.