I was on the road day before yesterday pulling a 5x8 U-Haul trailer roughly 300 miles on I-80 across northern Nevada. I kept the cruise control on 65 mph due to 100 degree temperatures. And the odd thing that caught my attention was the same white Tesla passed me four times at 80+ mph. I couldn't figure that out until I stopped for gas, and there was that same Tesla charging its batteries at a Tesla charging station at a Chevron gas station. It was then that I understood the odd behavior of the man and woman that belonged to that Tesla - their electric vehicle has no legs. I stopped for gas once while pulling a trailer loaded to the gills, and they had to stop at least 4 times pulling nothing.
I grew up at a time and in a place when children were sent home from public schools due to poor air quality. I was one of those children, so believe me when I tell you that I value clean air as much as the next guy. But two days ago on the road I received a first-hand education in why electric vehicles circa the first half of the 21st Century are not ready for primetime. Not in rural America, anyway. It is on the order of 400 miles across northern Nevada on I-80. Can you imagine the difficulty that couple would have had if they had been pulling a trailer as I had been? In 2013 I moved my wife and I the 2,000 miles from northern Alabama to northern Nevada. I pulled all three sizes of U-Haul trailers with my 2011 Ford F-150 Raptor, a naturally aspirated 6.2L V-8 powered full-sized truck. I made each drive in two days - nearly continuous driving with a 6-hour nap in the middle. It would have taken a week or more to do what I did in an electric vehicle - completely impractical, in other words.
Now I read that an Italian firm owns the DeLorean brand name and is going to make gull-winged 4-seat electric sports sedans similar to John DeLorean's iconic vehicle. Range: 300 miles. (No flux capacitor, apparently.) I applaud everyone and anyone who is willing to give Elon Musk's glorified golf carts a run for their money. But if you live in the wide open spaces, 300 miles ain't gonna get the job done. The 230 mile range of the Ford Lightning (300 miles with the extended range battery, but only 150 to 200 miles when towing a load) isn't cable of doing what people buy trucks for - not out west, anyway.
