The Rivian R1S’s sprawling touchscreen delivered the good news: After 40-plus minutes of charging at the halfway-point pit stop between San Francisco and L.A., we could easily make it the 220 miles home. Sure, fate might dictate an extra pit stop if the toddler collapsed into an inconsolable meltdown or one of the adults needed a bathroom break. But the math was clear: At a 95% charge, the big electric SUV’s battery could go an estimated 350 miles in Conserve Mode — more than enough to get home from Coalinga in one shot.
And then it happened. The baby held it together, thanks in part to the soothing power of pop song covers by a singing cat. We blew through the last leg of the journey over the mountains into greater Los Angeles.
For a fossil fuel vehicle, this would have been no big achievement; just about any old gas-burner could make a 400-mile highway trip with a single stop. In an EV, it’s a picture of what’s becoming possible as batteries get bigger and better, and more EVs have ranges that top 300 miles. Because believe me, if you want to road trip in an electric vehicle, you should buy all the range you can afford.
When my wife and I got a Tesla Model 3 six years ago, our simple single-motor edition came with a nominal 240 miles of Environmental Protection Agency-rated range. Pretty good, we thought. That’s nearly the distance to Las Vegas, and certainly enough to make the trip of 350 miles or so to San Francisco on one recharging stop.
How young I was. Range, remember, is a relative thing; an EPA miles rating doesn’t mean you’ll go that far. Compared to driving 50 miles per hour on some lonesome highway, range dips noticeably when you’re ignoring the 70 mile-per-hour speed limit on Interstate 5, just trying to get home. It is also impractical to use a battery’s entire capacity. Once you’ve passed 80% to 85% capacity, recharging slows dramatically, so much so that it’s annoying to sit there and accumulate a few extra miles unless you really need them. And when you’re driving, the miles below 10% aren’t usable unless you’re totally comfortable arriving at the next charger with just a percent or two left on the battery.
Because of these limitations, my little Tesla can’t really travel more than 140 to 150 real miles at freeway speed. As the battery has gotten older and its range has dwindled, the journey to San Francisco can be accomplished in two charging stops only if we begin with a full battery, carefully plan our stops, and don’t have to waste energy running the A/C on full blast because it’s obscenely hot. More commonly, the trip takes three full charging stops.
To be clear, this is not the worst thing in the world. It adds travel time, certainly, when compared to the Cannonball Run my wife used to make in college, stopping just once at the halfway point to get some gas. But with a baby in the back, we’re taking at least a couple breaks no matter what. The real problem driving long distances in an EV with low or fading range is that the trip becomes an exercise in logistics. You’re constantly aware of the car’s estimate for how much range will remain when you reach your destination — and alarmed if that number starts to decline. You also rarely stop just because you want to when there are so many stops you have to make.
To get a taste of the better life to come, I borrowed an R1S Tri Max Ascend for a long weekend trip to the Bay Area. A triple-motor, absurdly overpowered version of Rivian’s SUV, the Tri Max is a $105,000, nearly 7,000-pound behemoth that can outrace sports cars on a drag strip. Yet because of its enormous battery pack, the giant EV can still deliver more than 300 real-world miles on a charge, enough to fulfill my long-held fantasy of charging only once on the way to San Francisco.
The difference was apparent within the first two hours. As we crept through heavy traffic leaving Los Angeles on U.S. 101, the baby threw a fit. In my shorter-range EV, I would’ve powered through the ear-piercing misery for as long as it took to reach a Supercharger in Santa Barbara, then eaten whatever happened to be around. In the R1S, we knew we could make it comfortably all the way to Rivian’s fast charger in Pismo Beach, about halfway to S.F. So we pulled off in one of our favorite seaside towns, Carpinteria, for happy hour crab cakes to give the child a break from her seat.
It took a lengthy stop in Pismo to refill the Rivian’s gigantic battery, one we spent buying baby clothes at the outlet mall. But that got us to the Bay Area, where a quick pit stop at one of the Tesla Superchargers now open to non-Tesla cars provided plenty of electricity to bum around town all weekend. The only hitch in road-tripping in the Rivian is where you choose to stay — our hotel had one compatible slow-charging bay for overnight energy, but I never could snag it.
No, long range can’t duplicate the mad dash experience for the kind of drivers who want to stop only five minutes every four hours in order to “make good time.” And EV driving still requires more mental math than the old ways, where you would notice the fuel gauge is getting close to E and pull off at any of America’s multitude of gas stations. But extended range does give the EV driver more of the classic road trip experience, where stops are determined by life — bathroom breaks, coffee refills, backseat tantrums — and not solely by charging needs. And there’s nothing like having enough range to just get home when everybody in the family needs the trip to end.
The good news is that range is getting better across the board. A half-decade ago, a lot of pure EVs came with ranges that were barely above 200. Now, many more come with at least 240 to 250 miles in their entry-level versions, with battery upgrades available that take the figure north of 300.
The bad news is that range costs. No, you don’t have to splurge for a six-figure vehicle like the R1S Tri Max to get a big battery. Even with more affordable EVs, though, it costs thousands of dollars extra to get the larger battery, and with it, road trip peace of mind. An ideal solution to this problem is leasing, which gets people into better EVs for a lower monthly payment (and doesn’t leave them worrying about a battery’s long-term health as they would if they bought the car). But a lot of great lease deals are going to get a bit worse if the current government succeeds in undoing electric vehicle incentives.
For plenty of drivers, the extra cost won’t be practical or worthwhile — they could spend much less to stick with a hybrid vehicle, or settle for making a few extra road trip stops in a less expensive EV. But if I’m being honest, long range is a life-changer for anybody who loves the open road. EVs are already better than combustion cars in the city. Once driving range reaches well above 300 miles, they’re just about as good on the interstate, too.
Ming Yang blades, waiting in the wings. Visual China Group via Getty Images
