A handful of electric vehicles can now travel more than 300 miles (483 km) on a single charge.
That’s the so-called “sweet spot” and it’s 10 times farther than the average American travelled everyday before the pandemic. However, many people remain skeptical about driving an EV over long distances.
Those concerns are understandable as America’s charging infrastructure can be hit or miss, especially in rural areas. Drivers also need to spend plenty of time recharging as opposed to a quick five minute fill-up in vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Also Read: 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E Is A Modern Day Pony Car, For Better Or Worse
That didn’t stop Sergio Rodriguez from taking his 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E First Edition on a coast-to-coast trip from Murrieta, California to Saint Marys, Georgia. That’s a distance of 2,428 miles (3,907 km), which is far more than the vehicle’s EPA-estimated range of 270 miles (435 km).
So how did go? Wonderfully according to Rodriguez, who posted a YouTube video providing insights into his journey. In the clip, he says he spent a total of 586 minutes (9.8 hours) at DC fast chargers which were plentiful along the way. The trip was also relatively cheap as it only cost him $159.85 (£114.72 / €134.02).
To put that into perspective, the journey in a front-wheel drive Ford Escape with a 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine would have cost around $200 (£143.57 / €167.72) when you factor in the AAA national average cost of gasoline at $2.81 (£2.02 / €2.36) a gallon and the Escape’s 34 mpg highway rating. While that’s just a ballpark estimate, the key takeaway is the Mach-E would have been cheaper.
Of course, as the saying goes, time is money and 9.8 hours is a long time to be waiting for a charge. However, The Detroit Free Press noted the longest Rodriguez spent at a single charger was 38 minutes and that’s not too bad.