Yes. Because you can literally sleep the other two hours your other shift is driving. We do it regularly.

It is still not the same thing as taking a break. Some people can’t sleep in cars, most people don’t sleep well in cars. I’m glad you can. Just because you can does not mean most people can

That’s unfortunate for you. Every single person I know does fine rotating drivers. Semis also do it all the time and it’s considered safe enough.

Semis literally have beds in them. That is not the same as sleeping in a car

Unfortunately not because the primary energy losses come from aerodynamics not from the climb. So you can recover a decent amount, and the slower you go the more you can theoretically approach 99% recovery, but in practice this is not the case.

EVs take into account a ton of aero, and the aerodynamics don’t change going up or down hill. Also, in practice, regeneration going downhill does recuperate the range loss from going uphill. I have done it many, many times. Sometimes you even overcome range loss and end up with more than when you started if the descent is particularly steep, though that is much more rare.

🎶safety factors🎶

You keep saying safety factors, but it seems to be based on just a hunch

it was a comment on having to use alternate routes to stay charged, not on the actual duration of charging, which can potentially add up is still only around 20% added trip time.

That certainly can be a factor based on infrastructure. Again, we need a lot more out there

I appreciate the thought but we have an EV in the family, most of what I’ve said here relates to safety and practical outcomes and considerations we’ve made and worst case scenarios. In other words we have already done road tripping ourselves.

So do you have an EV or do you have family from out of town that does? You’ve kinda said both. Also, you have said you don’t want individual car arguments, but you seem to be basing everything on an individual car (the one in your family). The reality is the make/model of the car does make a difference, but it is becoming less and less of an issue as EV tech progresses, and a majority of them don’t have the issues you are concerned about. Unless you are road tripping in a gen 1 Leaf or Chevy Bolt, the concerns are more anxiety than anything.

My partner and I go camping a bunch (no charging stations in the bushes), road trip from Seattle down to Oregon quite a bit. Like I said, we have also done very long road trips, but those are more rare (as they are with most people). We have never run into an issue where the extra time was an issue, have never lost 40% range in the cold (with 3 different EVs), and have never had an issue with hills or mountains (again, we have always gone down the other side or back down the same way in the case of camping). Hell, we live in Seattle which is a steep city and my partner drives for work (75-100 miles/day) and have not run into these issues. I will say we are lucky to live on the west coast where the infrastructure is much better than other areas, but I have always agreed we need more infrastructure. Even so, now that we have a place to charge at night, we don’t use much of the local infrastructure (which is a privilege, I know).

More important than stuff we’ve been discussing (IMO, since most folks don’t actually road trip that much), I think more important things to argue for are infrastructure in rural areas, and infrastructure for people in apartments. Right now, not having a place to charge at night is a big barrier for most people in apartments. In rural areas, the distance between chargers is currently too high, though if folks have a place to charge at home, that is less of an issue for daily use.