ziggy29
Moderator Emeritus
According to Consumer Reports the Tesla model S is the best car they have ever tested. Not the best electric car, but the best car of all. They do add that given the need to recharge it every 200 miles or so it is probably not the best car for cross country trip. Still, since it was designed from the ground up as an electric car, the designers were able to take advantage of that fact to make it right.
Still, once every 200 miles is 3-5 times better than most other strictly plug-in electrics, so there's hope the technology can get cheaper with economy of scale and mature production. Of course, cruising range is only one of three major concerns with purely electric cars, the others being the time required to recharge and the ability of charging facilities on the road. (Battery life, cost and disposal are also concerns, but not everyday driving types of concern.) We'll know the technology has arrived for the masses when you can feasibly do a cross-country "road trip" in one that doesn't cost as much as a house. I think that will happen in my lifetime, but not really soon.
If the wealthy who can afford to subsidize early adoption want to drive down the costs of producing better EVs for the rest of us, so be it. They've certainly done it elsewhere, with computers, flat-panel TVs and cell phones among many other places.
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