With summertime road trips in full swing across the U.S., we're sure our readers are joining in.
On those trips, many of our readers are driving electric. Americans are known for long road trips in the summer but those can be challenging for electric-car early adopters, like many of our readers and followers. We asked our Twitter followers about the longest trip they've made in their electric car.
Not only did we get some interesting (if unscientific) data, those long trips planned around charging stations make for some of the most interesting stories here on Green Car Reports.
CHECK OUT: Electric-car road trip: lessons learned in Chevy Bolt EV over 1,300 miles
Our Twitter poll asked "What's the longest trip you've taken in your electric car?"
We broke down the responses into less than 100 miles (the total range of many early electric cars), less than 200 miles (or trips that can be accomplished with just one charging stop in the middle), less than 500 miles (a full day's drive, and a not-uncommon length for vacation and holiday travel), and longer trips.
What's the longest trip you've taken in your electric car?
— Green Car Reports (@GreenCarReports) June 18, 2018
Almost half of our Twitter followers who responded (43 percent), said they had driven more than 500 miles in their electric cars on a single trip. We may follow up on that question to see how many days these drivers spent and how they charged. (Or if they all drove Teslas and used Superchargers.)
The second largest group among our poll respondents kept their electric cars as local commuters, saying the farthest they ever drove was 100 miles. Those users accounted for 20 percent of our respondents.
Almost as many chose each of the middle options: those who drove up to 200 miles (19 percent), and those who went up more than 200 miles but less than 500 miles (18 percent).
READ THIS: Why I traded my Chevy Bolt EV for a Tesla: one reader's story
Perhaps the most interesting fact from our survey is that, combining the two groups who made the longest trips, 61 percent of our respondents have driven more than 200 miles, which is beyond the range of many early electric cars and applicable to only a handful of new EVs on the market. (Not to mention longer than many gasoline-powered cars.)
As usual, our readers proved very faithful and practiced at using the full capabilities of their electric cars. Look for more polls on how our Twitter followers make long trips in their electric cars. It's an interesting exploration.
And as always, remember that our Twitter polls are unscientific. Our sample size is not representative of national trends, and our user base is self selected.
