this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
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Oh wow. After my last trip that was supposed to take like 9 hours and ended up more like 12, I decided to never do that to myself ever again. But I guess if you have multiple drivers that can share the burden, such along day on the road is still an option.
Eh, I usually drive the whole way because I often get carsick if someone else drives, though my SO is there if I need a break. I grew up doing that, and started driving most (if not all) of the way as young as 16, so I'm used to it. We're pretty efficient at it (get gas and go to the bathroom, then get back driving), and my kids basically just read, watch videos, or play video games in the backseat.
It's a lot cheaper than flying and honestly less stressful than flying (no TSA, listening for boarding call, etc) and we don't need to rent a car at the destination, though it takes a lot longer.
We'll also do "shorter" trips at like 200-400 miles (i.e. visit nearby state and national parks), and an EV with 200-300 miles range would make that annoying (we'd have to recharge just before getting there). And the charging infrastructure to those places is spotty at best. An EV would be totally fine for around town driving, but not for road trips, so I either need <200 miles range, or >400.
Interesting. I don't have a car any more and no kids, but my friends that do always tell me their kids need more breaks than the electric car. And I always found that I need breaks every 2-3 hours anyway to keep the alertness high. I can't imagine going 400 miles in one go.
We make sure the kids use the restroom at each stop, we don't give them many liquids, and distract them w/ tablets and audiobooks. But honestly, half the time we need to stop in the middle of nowhere because it's an "emergency" and they can't make it to the next stop (to be fair, where we go, stops are about every 20-50 miles), so they'll pee on the side of the road (we keep baby wipes and hand sanitizer handy).
If I could time it perfectly, an EV could potentially work. But with so much space between reasonable stops and a high chance for "emergencies," it would probably add another hour or two to the total trip time if we had to wait to recharge, and that's assuming we can reliably find available fast chargers (I hear they're often broken/occupied).