[kaisen]

RE: Tesla won't make a cross-country trip

For one thing, several people have done it just to say they did, including journalists. More are doing it as we speak.

But it's largely irrelevant whether you can or cannot drive your Tesla from Los Angeles to New York. Or Los Angeles to Denver, or wherever else. Look, if you do it regularly you would simply pick a different car. But face it, statistically NO ONE does it regularly. Once or twice a year? Sure.

So even if you took a cross-country driving trip every single freaking weekend, you'd still be commuting normally 313 days per year. The 85th percentile American drives less than 40 miles per day. So you charge it at home every night. It's full when you leave for work that next morning. A Telsa S 85 would let the average person (40 mi/day) commute every day all work week without plugging it in. But you still would/could at home each night.... and most do.

If you do drive 40 miles per day in a Tesla S 85, you use about 15 kW per day (40 miles at 37kWh/100mi). Charging overnight at slodave's parent's home costs them $1.20 per day ($0.08/kWh x 15kW). If they instead drove their 2007 S550 the same 40 miles at the EPA combined average of 19mpg, we'd use 2.1 gals of premium gasoline at $4.35/gal. That's $9.16 per day. $9.16 per day in the S550 versus $1.20 per day in the Telsa saves them $7.96 each day.

You're going to save about $40 per work week. Take a cross-country trip one weekend a month, and you'd have $170 saved to rent an appropriate car for that weekend, should you be worried about range or finding a place to charge (free or not). Of course, that's if the only car in your household is a Telsa EV, and you don't own another car. Do *ANY* of you only own one car??

Notice that NONE of my scenarios here have touched on free superchargers or government subsidies or rebates. Just the costs that Joe Public (in this case Dave and his family) would incur to go about their daily lives. It's just a car.