• SuperCyan
    +3

    This is really good news, because the lack of range is one of the only things that's holding the Tesla back.

    I posted something a bit earlier, about how a couple trips that I've made would have been impossible; either I'd have to go tens of miles away to find a charging station, or I'd have to charge my car at my destination. For day-to-day travel, the 250-270 miles that they currently get are fine, but many people will leave their immediate area for a while. Any long road trip would require a lot of planning, as charging stations are scattered across America - rather than the gas stations at every highway exit. Some destinations wouldn't have a charging station for tens of miles, requiring the driver to limit in-town driving. With a Tesla, it'd be possible that, for a lot of trips, renting a car would be required, because the driving involved would either be full of hassle, or impossible.

    Hearing that one of their next cars has a 600 mile range is incredible. Most, if not all, cars currently on the market don't have that. However, they don't need them, since gas stations are everywhere. Even 400 miles would make most trips feasible. While an extended range is welcomed, they should be focusing more attention on getting charging stations in more places. Even if the car has a 600 mile range, people on vacation still wouldn't want to drive far away just to get a charge - and charging at a hotel would be pretty difficult, given an uncertainty of outlets - especially looking for the ones that put out the 240 volts required to charge them in a decent amount of time.

    • Bastou
      +1

      This is an egg-or-chicken situation : businesses don't want to invest in electric chargers because too few clients have EVs; and people don't buy EVs because electric chargers are too scarce. Once they become more widespread, chargers will follow quite fast, or will it be the other way around?

      Anyway, someone will have to take some kind of (seemingly hard) decision one day that will pay in the not-even-that-long run. The way things are now will not remain the same forever, chargers are coming anyway.