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“I had this neighbor whose son would drive a 2- 2.5 hr trip, depending on traffic, to see her. When he switched to some electric car the trip took him usually over 5 hours as he had to stop to charge and many times had to wait.”

So, it sounds like it was about a 125-ish mile trip.

If he owned a 2013 Nissan Leaf, it could go about 75 miles on a full charge. If the car was a few years old, that would have dropped to about 60 miles.

On the newest Leaf - can’t find charging times for the older models - with the fastest charger available it would take him 40 minutes to get to 80% charged.

It could easily be two charges to go 125 miles, especially if the car were not fully charged to begin with. If it were an ICV the gas stop would take 5 minutes and be no big deal. Let’s say it was after work and his car was already half depleted.

Drive 30 miles - ~35 minutes
Charge - 40 minutes (80% charge)
Drive 50 miles - ~57 minutes
Charge - 40 minutes
Drive 45 miles - ~50 minutes

Note, in this example there are charging stations EXACTLY where he needs them and they are Rapid 100kW charging stations. This would be really unlikely outside of California. If he live in an area with only Fast 22kW charging stations, it would take 6 hours to get to 80% charge, but I digress...

This puts the previously 2 to 2.5 hour drive at a tad over 3.5 hours.

Were this a Chevy Spark from the same era, with a 51 mile range when new and a 40 mile range after about 4 years, it could easily be in the 5 hour time frame.

Maybe he was traveling in an area that had a lot of EVs? Just waiting for one car in front of him to finish charging could take that 40 charge to an 80 minute wait-and-charge.

Point is, unlike the EV pushers here on FR with their Tesla Model 3’s that cost as much as this home in Kentucky...

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/6309-Eureka-Ave_Louisville_KY_40216_M31998-94612

MOST Americans can’t afford the pricy virtue signaling vehicles. What they can afford and avoid the snobbish wrath of the EV disciples will not get them very far and will deter them from taking longer trips.