Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Electric Vehicles

Seriously, Long Range EVs Will Save Your Sanity

Road tripping goes electric.

An EV driving through a landscape.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

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.

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Politics

Internal Agency Memo Calls for Political Reviews of Solar, Wind Projects

The widely circulating document lists more than 68 activities newly subject to upper-level review.

Doug Burgum.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The federal government is poised to put solar and wind projects through strict new reviews that may delay projects across the country, according to a widely circulating document reviewed by Heatmap.

The secretarial order authored by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Gregory Wischer is dated July 15 and states that “all decisions, actions, consultations, and other undertakings” that are “related to wind and solar energy facilities” will now be required to go through multiple layers of political review from Burgum’s office and Interior’s Office of the Deputy Secretary.

Keep reading...Show less
Energy

AI Could Help Decarbonize the Grid. It’s Already Helping Find More Oil.

Two former Microsoft employees have turned their frustration into an awareness campaign to hold tech companies accountable.

AI and oil drilling.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

When the clean energy world considers the consequences of the artificial intelligence boom, rising data center electricity demand and the strain it’s putting on the grid is typically top of mind — even if that’s weighed against the litany of potential positive impacts, which includes improved weather forecasting, grid optimization, wildfire risk mitigation, critical minerals discovery, and geothermal development.

I’ve written about a bunch of it. But the not-so-secret flip side is that naturally, any AI-fueled improvements in efficiency, data analytics, and predictive capabilities will benefit well-capitalized fossil fuel giants just as much — if not significantly more — than plucky climate tech startups or cash-strapped utilities.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Ideas

To Succeed in Washington, Clean Energy Has to Play Both Sides

A longtime climate messaging strategist is tired of seeing the industry punch below its weight.

Donald Trump and wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The saga of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains at least one clear lesson for the clean energy industry: It must grow a political spine and act like the trillion-dollar behemoth it is. And though the logic is counterintuitive, the new law will likely provide an opportunity to build one.

The coming threat to renewable energy investment became apparent as soon as Trump won the presidency again last fall. The only questions were how much was vulnerable, and through what mechanisms.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue