Just doesn't make sense to have an EV if you're driving on trips like that often, but you have multiple cars, for your everyday use an EV would likely be great. For me if I got an EV, I would only get one car as an EV and make sure the other car is a car we would want to travel in. So lets say I got my wife a Model Y, I would replace my S Class with a 3 row Range Rover or GLS or something. Or if I got myself a Model S or a i7 or something, we would keep a gas minivan or big SUV for my wife for travel.

Really my wife drives so little around town it makes the most sense to get me the EV.

I have a great car, I disagree lol. I ain't driving anything 1,600 miles unless I have no choice.

Those flight cancellations are INSANE! Southwest airlines basically every flight was cancelled or delayed yesterday.

It would be like me not buying a sedan because I'm concerned we might have to evacuate the whole family and my wife's van might also be broken down.

 

this isn't about me, or you it seems. but TONS of people drive long trips. 2 uncles/aunts live nr toronto and drive to florida every winter (don't blame them, lol). they would not do well in (non-tesla) ev's!

it's not all about you.

not necessary, the thread title explicitly says "non-tesla".

 

with the airline fiascos recently, driving long distance is looking more attractive!

even putting aside airline staffing problems, weather problems, baggage problems, etc., flying just PLAIN SUCKS these days. even if you have first class tickets you can't get on the plane for a good while when boarding supposedly 'starts' (great bill burr comedy piece on this!). and who knows how well the plane was cleaned. and if you have to check in a bag? forget it unless you arrive hours and hours before your flight.

i actually LOVE road trips to holiday destinations because i have my car at the other end, i can pack pretty much as i want (my own pillows, drone bag, loads of shoes, food, drinks, on and on!).

tesla's network is impressive to be sure, and they will need to keep expanding it as they sell more cars, and especially if they open them up to non-teslas.

 

You didn't answer my question lol. There are all kinds of people in the world, and something doesn't have to work for every use case in order to be viable. There are also TONS of people who don't drive on long trips. I think you would find if you looked at the statistics that a pretty small % of people routinely drive trips over 400 miles each way.

I wouldn't want to drive from Toronto to FL in any EV, including a Tesla. Not yet anyways.

Never said it was, just offering my own experience in my own life.

This is one strange situation, this will pass and air travel will again be what it always has been, extremely reliable.

Flying sucks, but driving multiple days to reach a destination and driving multiple days back sucks too. IMO it sucks worse lol.

I fly a lot, and even with my kids I have never needed to show up for a domestic flight more than 2 hours before departure, and I always check bags. I have TSA Pre Check and CLEAR which are provided free with a credit card, and even the most crowded security line never takes more than 20 minutes, and usually its 2 minutes. Even when we were flying with two infants, its really not that big a deal.

For instance we are getting ready to drive to Albany on Friday, we're driving just because we bring a ton of crap for the kids and its expensive to fly. But, before the kids were born we used to fly there, its a 1.5 hour flight, so the whole travel takes 3.5-4 hours vs 6.5-7 in a car, with kids complaining and whining and bathroom breaks and having to think about the weather, traffic through NY, etc. Vs driving to the airport, having something to eat, getting on a plane, and having them pick us up at the airport. All things being equal, give me the plane.

Its not all about you.

 

All valid points. The best part is being in your own car at the other end. I often get this from my wife when we fly. "It would be perfect if we could have our car here."
Valid points too. IMO though, if my travel takes 3-4 hours, it's not even a question for us. With the help from the tech, I can go 200+ easily before needing to break. I don't know the numbers but I think the numbers are significant. People drive Nevada/N-S California all the the time. I was in Destin a few times and surprised to see so many cars from other states.

You two remind me my first job... I came in, they gave me a shirt. I opened it up and it says "It's all about you." right in the front. Lol.

 

I think its all relative, I can drive for 300 miles without needing a break, but the kids can't...and my wife can't. If you're guaranteed open highways then thats not stressful, but around here its so congested that the traffic makes travel really stressful. If we were say going to Disney which we do a couple times a year, traveling down there means 2 days on each end that aren't spent enjoying a vacation, and the cost of lodging overnight half way. When you factor in the cost of fuel, opportunity cost of adding 4 days to a vacation, the cost of lodging, it really just doesn't make sense for us to drive. A lot of people who take long leisurely trips like that are retired, and they enjoy the slow pace of driving to a location and stopping along the way, thats not us lol. Kids are in school, I work, and every vacation day is too valuable to spend it just sitting in a car all day.

 

I wouldn’t do this road trip again, it wasn’t bad but it was tiring even though I could’ve driven straight through except we would have arrived at 4am. The question when we embarked on this journey was drive the X7 in nice comfort or rent a crappy car and leave it here and fly back. We chose to rent a car and fly back (hopefully) since we would lose a couple days on the back end driving.

900 miles one way is a long drive and I don’t see me doing it again even though I hate flying. I guess I hate driving long distances more.

The thread topic is an interesting one and when I take a longer trip I always wonder what it would be like in my Tesla just out of curiosity and after the trip I thank god I didn’t drive it.

 

i know it says not tesla, but everyone is taking it as if it all EVs have problems.

Tesla you can be sure you can charge and planning for the trip can be done by car, in the car. Other brands, you can be sure that you will have many problems.

That being said, trips that take more than 2 charges to complete (more than 500-600 miles or some similar arbitrary number?) make little sense if you have to make them often. Doing it in EV is just limiting yourself for no good reason.

I have two friends that often drive 600-800-1000 mile trips and they think i will tell them something smart when they complain about EVs - it is very simple, EVs are not for them. Why would you want to stop 4-5 times during your trip? Makes little sense.

On the other hand, depending on EV, 200-400 mile trips are just fine. But not in every EV and every trip. People also dont understand all the nuances of EV driving, like actually not charging above 80% since it becomes too slow, then you cant really often charge at 0% since you also have to have chargers ever 1 mile for that. Then higher average speeds, acceleration, hills, winter/rain/summer, all influence your consumption so quite often people need to make 100-150 mile charging stops. Rare EVs that do 200+ mile stops in all situations would be something like Model S with 100kwh battery, or Lucian Air (so little of them on roads).

So as long distance cruisers EVs make even less sense than most of you guys here think, but at the same time that is perfectly fine. There is no one solution fits all, Diesels at height of their popularity were 55% of European car market. There is little chance of single solution covering every possible usage case.

 

Tell me about how costly vacation days are. Lol. At least you can somewhat do some work being away. If you ever drive by Alabama, stop by its Bucee. You'll be surprised how many travel on wheels and these are usually not retired. I was there once and so shocked. Mostly families with kids. But I agree on far get away with limited time. In such cases, flying is definitely the way to go.

How is it even possible to cost you guys a few days each way? I mean if the weather is bad, why even consider driving?

I think we have come to a conclusion that, Tesla or not, EVs are not for long distance travel... yet.

 

I have been to that Buc-Ees in Alabama! Oh I know lots of people travel by car, but lots of people don't also

I mean driving somewhere as far as Orlando from DC. Thats a 14 hour trip, I'm not going to do that in one sitting, thats going to be two days of 7 hours worth of travel each....vs a 2.5 hour flight.

 

drive a few times a year 250+ mi. ea. way. while a lot of EVs can do that one way without a charge, i still wouldn't be comfortable with anything but a tesla based on what i've seen/read. and even worse, even if i can get there without charging, then i will still have to charge when i get there, and i guarantee whomever i'm staying with won't have a 240v charging outlet so i have to find a 'local' place to charge and waste time hanging around in some boring parking lot or rationalize that i wanted to go to the starbucks/walmart/whatever anyway.

not sure why you picked 400 as some yardstick.

seems like mainly just to orlando.

exactly why a lot of people drive.

a friend drives LA to Aspen CO (long way like the video!!) and back a lot. and he flies a ton as well.

understand, but i don't see it as 3.5-4 hours.

example: drive to airport - let's say :30
park and get into terminal let's say :15
check-in let's say :15 (optimistic!)
eat / security / wait to board: 1:00 (optimistic)
time between boarding and actually getting off the ground :30
flying: 1:30
get off plane (unless you're up front) :15 (all those freaking overhead bags and slow people)
get through terminal to ride :15
ride to where you're going :30
total: 5 hours

plus you get the pleasure of many good opportunities to get colds, flu, infections, covid, strep, etc.

drive from maryland (?) to albany ny
6 hours

it's a similar situation for me to go to atlanta.
5.5 hr drive or 1hr flight with all the above garbage.
it's a tough decision.

 

So the answer is no. 250 miles each way is way different than 1,200 miles.

Its a distance that can be traversed in most EVs with one charging stop.

With the kids mainly to Orlando but I fly other places myself for work too.

The drive time is more than 6 hours, its more like 7 hours with stops etc. So, flying is an hour and a half faster, and it goes much faster because you're moving and doing things vs just being stuck in the car. 5.5 hours I would drive, especially because the Atlanta airport is such a disaster.

 

First, I’ve never seen a Bucee’s or whatever it’s called until I drove by one last night, wow. It’s the biggest gas station I’ve ever seen and it was packed. It was seriously impressive.

As far as my vacation, I was off this week and there was no way I was going to stay at home when I needed a break and Disney was already paid for. I was going to find a way down and there were no flights out of BWI or National in DC for the week. My rental was about $800 for the week and I didn’t care because it was cheaper than what I paid for my family of four one way on Southwest so I will take the credit and use it later.

 

Left in that situation I would have rented a car and driven too!

Oh and Buc-Ees is amazing. Life changing!

 

I feel like a lot of nay sayers look at the challenges of EVs as very black and white. Majority of people are not taking these huge extended road trips every day. Its like people who daily pickup trucks. 99% of time you arent towing or hauling anything you couldn't in a regular vehicle. It's a mental thing that you need to overcome. Sure having the capability is nice but when most of America does the same boring commute every single day, you really don't need much vehicle. I think most daily commutes would be well served by almost any of the EVs on the market right now. The people in my life with EV's are two car families, one EV , and one ICE vehicle. So if a long trip has to be taken you have a gas vehicle. Thats the best of both worlds. I think I took one road trip in 2022 that was about 400 miles each way. Otherwise, I fly as I don't want to waste my vacation time driving through cornfields.