this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2026
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The plane trip is a great analogy. There's probably plenty of data on which aircraft can fly it and, optimizations aside, you might have the option of over-fueling to be sure you can accomplish it.
With a BEV your pitiful energy limit might mean doing all those cross country calculations just to reach the other side of the state. And even then the sheer number of variables (Will I hit traffic? Will a fast charger spot be available at X? When exactly will it drop below freezing? Will my battery be conditioned at start? Does M miles of ~N mi/kWh surface streets beat M-Y miles of highway...) makes it impossible to precisely say.
You basically have to drive by feel, hence my reckoning of my car needing 1.5-2x dashboard mileage buffer for critical margin trips. I've personally made the exact same trip in different conditions and pulled in from as low as 3% up to 35% battery remaining.
The only solutions are way better/larger batteries, much smaller cars, or massively expanded charging infrastructure. Unfortunately nothing [affordable] in the market is addressing any of those.