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I just drove from Chicago to Tampa, stayed for two weeks in FL, and then drove back over the last two weeks. I did both sprints straight through in a 2008 Infiniti G37, which has a six-speed auto, V6 engine, and 20 gallon tank. At an average speed of 85 mph, the car averaged about 24mpg, giving me a range of around 420 miles per gallon (with ~60 mile reserve).

This is an edge case of course. I'm 31, and drove the entire ~15 hour drive at once with breaks only for fuel/bathroom at the same time. If I owned a Model S, I'd just fly.

It's not an edge case, but neither is it really a sensible comparison.

You have to look at the model s like the first macintosh. It does some revolutionary things very well and it's an astounding achievement. It will however take a few years to overtake the mainstream. It would be a little short-sighted to go on about how the Apple II is so much more practical, even though it was at first.

So you spend $325 on gas for that trip. Which is about a third of the monthly payment required for a Model S.

I used to really want a Model S, but I just don't think paying for that much battery is worth it as long as your commute isn't over 60 miles. Instead of a Model S, you can lease a Leaf for city driving and buy luxury gas car for road trips, both combined for a smaller total payment. Plus you now have two cars!

People seem to be missing your point, time is money. To those with lots of money time necessarily isn't as much money. Hence, the Tesla buyers have the luxury of time.

Going on a vacation for us means, the less time we spend getting there the more time we have on vacation since we have to work it in between what work allows.

Still I cannot believe even on this site all the people justifying stopping every couple of hours for thirty minutes. Even traveling with dogs that isn't necessary. Top it off, all those stops extend the trip which means yet another hotel.

Plus my number one issue, the supercharge network governs how you do your trip, which routes you take. That can simply put some locations out of practicality.

That's 1.44 metric tons of CO2 emission. A Tesla may not be as practical, but it extends the longevity of our planet for damn sure.

[EDIT] I used this website to calculate http://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx?tab=4

I offset the carbon emissions through Terrapass (http://www.terrapass.com/). It's not perfect, I know, but I can't afford a Tesla at the moment without liquidating my TSLA stock.

Total cost to offset ~2 metric tons of CO2: ~$20 (http://www.terrapass.com/shop/)

That's an interesting service, it makes me wonder what other indulgence-style businesses could exist for wealthy people ...

  +--------------------------+------+--------+
  | Name                     | Qty. | Price  |
  +--------------------------+------+--------+
  | Littering                |    1 |  $6.95 |
  +--------------------------+------+--------+
  | Water lawn in drought    |    1 | $34.95 |
  +--------------------------+------+--------+
  | Let's do this mega-trip  |    1 | $19.95 |
  | in a sports car! And     |      |        |    
  | drive really fast too!   |      |        |
  +--------------------------+------+--------+

Guilt is so 2006.

Since when are services built on sound science "indulgence-style"? It wasn't like I drove to Florida on a vacation; I was taking care of a family member. I'm not supposed to go because I'm releasing ~2 tons of carbon? Bah.

There's nothing wrong with driving far distances, it's just that money negating pollution is silly to me, as incongruent as a tithe forgiving sins. You can't just wring automobile emissions out of the sky, and a donation doesn't change the fact that the extra car on the road causes other cars to slow, producing more emissions, increasing demand for road infrastructure and such.

Doesn't that already exist? Where I live, there's a fine for all three of those things.

I think the point is that more often you're stopping for more than just gas. Lunch. Bathroom. Clean your windshield. You add it up, it's longer than 10 mins anyway, so this doesn't affect you all that much.

Also I take issue with the logic that fuel savings don't matter if you're spending that much on a car anyway. I don't see it that way at all. Being able to pay like $1k/mo car payment doesn't yet put you in "money is no object" territory IMO.

Why does the level of discourse around this subject need to be so disingenuous?

There is definitely a time penalty at stops. Meals are the only one of those things that takes longer than 10 minutes. You do that maybe a couple times a day.

With the model s you are stopping about every 2.5-3 hours for 30 minutes. Exactly one or two of those stops might involve a half hour meal, where it doesn't make a difference. The rest of the time, it does. To characterize this as not "affecting you all that much" vs. a traditional gas trip is just not accurate.

But you know what? That's ok. I don't get why some enthusiasts feel the need to pretend there are no compromises. It's ok for the model s to have some drawbacks at this stage. It's early. That's how the technology cycle works. Like I said elsewhere, the model s is like the first macintosh. It's the future and it's already pretty cool. No need to pretend it does more than it can. That just polarizes people.

Disingenuous? Hey buddy, GFY.

Last year I drove from Florida to San Francisco. We did it over 5 days, my wife and I with our dog.

We stopped as-needed and always more than 10 minutes. Just filling the tank & handling payment takes that long. But in reality, you NEED to clean the windshield to clear off the bug splatter. And you NEED to use the facilities. Probably you and your passengers. And you really WANT a moment to stand up and stretch your legs anyway.

Does it always take 30 minutes? Certainly not. Twenty? Probably more like it.

"Just not accurate"? "enthusiasts need to pretend?" From where I'm sitting your comment here is a contender for A-hole of the Thread award. Congrats, you must be so proud.

I take issue with your accusations. I wrote what I wrote in good faith based on my somewhat recent experience with the cross-country road trip. I don't look politely on somebody like yourself suggesting otherwise.

You're being needlessly aggressive. The comment to which you are responding was raising a reasonable point.

You can raise a point without an ad hominem attack, mturmon. Happily standing-by my comment.

> You're being needlessly aggressive.

The first line of the abalone's post was needlessly insulting. I'm not saying that tit-for-tat is OK, but I can see what provoked the outburst.

Disagree. This kind of disproportionate outburst is not fit for HN. "Go fuck yourself" and "A-hole of the thread" have no place here.

There's one more factor: driving speed. To get more energy efficiency on long trips, it often makes sense to drive the model s around 50-55mph rather than 65+. So if you average 10mph slower over 2800 miles, that's an additional 8 hours of driving time on top of the charging time.

See comments here for a recent cross-country trip. Where the driver notes his average speed it's around 50-55mph. http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/heading-cross-countr...

(Also of note: planning around cold weather seems to be a significant consideration.)

I don't think that's accurate when your using supercharging stations. Electricity costs far less than gas so if your adding more time than you save by refueling less it's basically pointless unless your could get to a much further charging station. However, there way to far apart for that to be practical so your stopping in the same locations if your doing 55 or 75.

There's one more factor: Dont I have to do a mandatory roundtrip so that I can return the individual batteries to Tesla? Thats the way their battery swap program works at the moment.

The article isn't about their battery swap program. Its about their fast charge network.

Oops, I totally missed that part. It sounds more realistic now.

The battery swap is not the 30 minute charge time, it's an actual charge of your own battery (the swap is a lot faster than 30 minutes). I don't think battery swap is currently available at these charge locations?

Correct. There are no battery swap stations in service anywhere at the present time.

Speculative: if Elon Musk's hyperloop vision happens, batteries could be loaded into pods and shipped most of their journey that way.

There's a part of this comment which makes me think I'm missing something. According to their website, the Mercedes A180 CDI ECO gets 78.5mpg.

78.5.

I own a car I would consider sporty, and I can still get over 35mpg when driving on motorways at a sensible speed.

I'm in the UK. Are we using some other metric to establish MPG or are cars in the USA really that absurd that they get your quoted 25mpg on a long journey?

Uk gallons are slightly largers than US Gallons.

(4.54 L vs 3.78 L)*

*(note how I used the universal 'Liter' measurement to stunn you all! ;-) )

If you're driving long distance, you should be stopping for a break every hour or two just to stretch your body and keep mentally alert. These stops are not quite the right rhythm, but they are not a bad idea either.

Absolutely. But 30 minutes is longer than you need for that each time. I think most people would find 30 min every 2 hours would be a pretty painful time penalty on a cross-country road trip, despite the health benefits. (That and having to drive around 55mph most of the way to get better efficiency, too.)

But it's still early days and that should improve with future cars.

A more common scenario is my experience is a quick stop to change drivers; solo you need proper breaks, if you have multiple drivers sharing the load then you can drive for a lot longer before fatigue is an issue.