No. of Recommendations: 16
What about the long road trips with kids? In the U.S. some of us travel long distances. After 4 hours of driving the three kiddos in the back, all under the age of 10 and strapped in their car seats, are getting restless. You pull in to the only Tesla charging station you can find in an unfamiliar town. It is 20 deg F (-7 C) outside. You tell the children to sit quietly, while going nowhere for 20 minutes. The charging station is in a sketchy part of town and you can't wait to get the h*ll out of there.
First of all, most people do only one or two road trips a year, and the average distance is under 300 miles one way. So that means one charging stop along the way. And in real life, this isn't how it works. In real life, the kids (and wife and you) will need to stop to pee, to grab a snack, to drink, to clean up whatever mess they made, to stretch their legs, etc. Whether you are driving and ICE vehicle or an EV, you're going to stop, and it won't be a 5 minute stop, it'll be longer than that. Just herding all the kids to the proper bathrooms takes a few minutes, then washing hands, other clean up, snacks and drinks, and looking at the "cool stuff" (even travel brochures can be cool to kids) at the rest stop will take some time. And in the real world, the charging stations AREN'T in sketchy parts of town for a few reasons, but mainly because the owners of EV tend to be more upscale consumers, and because better locations avoid vandalism, and because if you want business from road trippers, you need to locate your chargers at a convenient location just off the highway with sufficient amenities nearby. That's why a lot of new superchargers are at WaWa. The kids **LOVE** WaWa, good place to sit and have a snack, decent bathrooms, and ALL SORTS of snacks available to purchase. Their flavored coffees are a favorite of my wife and older kids. On a road trip a few years ago, while still on line at Dunkin, my car sent me a message that it was already done charging, I had to quickly bump it up to a higher percentage max charge to avoid idle charges at the charger! Then as soon as we got out coffees and hot chocolates, I had to run out to move the car to a regular spot while the rest of the family finished their snacking.
I have 5 kids (all born over a period of 6 years) and road tripped with them for years, so this is really how it works in real life, EV or no EV.
