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Comment by pkulak | Hacker News Reader

Slight advantage??? A Tesla is the only electric car that, for the foreseeable future, can be used to drive more than 100 miles outside of town.

I'd be a Bolt owner today if I thought I could road trip in it at a reasonable level of stress.

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Perhaps one of these [1] in the boot would reduce stress. It gives about 4 miles of range per hour of charge [2], so only for reducing stress, not for actual planned use!

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Honda-EU2000i-Generator-Inverter-Stor...

[2] https://www.chevyevlife.com/bolt-ev-charging-guide/

You can sort of wing it with EVgo https://www.evgo.com/charging-locations/ and ChargePoint https://na.chargepoint.com/charge_point but I agree it's not as stress-free as Tesla Superchargers.

I owned a Leaf for 2 years. "Winging" it really, really, sucks. Especially when you have your family with you, who don't share your enthusiasm for electric vehicles. :D

I just bought a Volt for this reason. My wife will be able to stay electric 90+ % of the time, but this weekend's 150 mile round-trip out of town and back for her will be stress free. I'm not sure even being in a Tesla would be as convenient since I don't think there's a supercharger directly on the route.

A Tesla can do 150 miles without needing to charge at all.

Yeah, that's a good point. For some reason I was thinking of the Bolt with more like 200 mile range, which could still make this trip, but it would be close once you add in the bit of driving she did at the destination.

But I think the larger point is still valid: the charging infrastructure is still not nearly as widespread as gas stations and charging still takes longer than re-fueling. For us, the compromise of a range extender is still the best of both worlds. We can run electric most of the time, but we can still use the Volt as a "regular car" for road trips.

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