One thing people don’t understand very well is that charging time is not linear - it takes a LOT longer to charge the last 1% than the first 1%. This is important during road trips.

On a typical trip from SF to LA in our Model 3 with 300 miles range, you would think you would stop once “for gas” and charge to 100% as that is the mental model coming from a gas car. However, it takes ~45-60 mins to charge to 100% and only ~10-12 mins to charge to 50%, so the much better option is to make 2 stops along the way and only charge to 50% each time.

When you look at it from that perspective, you need to take 10 mins to stretch your legs every 2-2.5 hours of driving or so, which really isn’t a big deal at all and probably good for you. Using that strategy an indefinitely long road trip in an EV really isn’t a burden at all.

Central PA to northern New York is no big deal with the super charger network, I’ve done drives of that length.

Tesla has offered access to their superchargers, but legacy car companies haven’t taken them up on the offer.

Day to day, Tesla’s are better than gas - you don’t have to deal with filling up ever or oil changes etc.

Mid range road trips like you describe are also easy.

Super long cross country trips are doable, but more of a pain since the time spent charging starts to add up (it is a lot cheaper though).

> Tesla has offered access to their superchargers, but legacy car companies haven’t taken them up on the offer

Probably because Tesla demanded something that they knew other manufacturers won't give them.

They pulled the same PR stunt when they offered their pretty limited patent pool in exchange for all patents of the partaking manufacturers. Nobody wanted to take part because as a result Tesla would have had access to all patents while the others would only have had access to Tesla's patents. A pretty bad deal for everybody except Tesla.

I’m not sure how bad a deal that would have been for the legacy companies - I’d guess most of their patents are worthless (maybe good for defense).

The legacy car companies are held back by the dealer model and failing to execute for ten years giving tesla a massive head start.

I’m not sure they’ll be able to survive the transition. Refusing to support superchargers just makes whatever EVs they do come up with a non-starter. The Electrify America network sucks.

Those "legacy" companies are already selling more EV than Tesla in Norway. Norway taxes ICE to an extreme and was Tesla's PR example where they claimed to be the front-runner.

In 2020 from January to October the Model 3 was behind the Audi e-Tron, VW's aging e-Golf, the VW ID.3, the Hyundai Kona, and the Nissan Leaf.

Norway isn’t that big - a lot of the advantages tesla has don’t matter as much there so it’s not as easily comparable.

Beyond that I don’t know the specifics (price in Norway, etc.)

So my point is it's not the same UX and convenience that a gas car offers present day and for a few years or so.

When it is then it makes sense for me to buy one. I'm happy to be driving a 2015 Nissan Sentra that is paid for.

It depends. If you can charge at home or work it has been more convenient for many years.

I think it’s better UX and convenience on net today than a gas car and has been since the supercharger network was put in place.

Daily driving and charging at home is much better than filling up and paying for gas.

Trip supercharging adds 45min on a 300mi trip which is worth the trade off today for many.

If you’re making really long trips all the time, your trade off calculation will vary. Most are not.