Does Traveling by EV Turn into a Trip Just to Recharge?

Recently, I watched a travel YouTuber test what it was like to take a trip in an EV.

The results seemed disastrous.

An EV may be convenient for driving around town, but current EVs still present serious difficulties on long-distance trips.

What stood out most was the shortage of charging stations, the long charging times, and the uncertainty surrounding the remaining battery level.

A Trip Spent Searching for Charging Stations

With a gasoline car, you can stop at a nearby gas station when the fuel runs low. Refueling takes only a few minutes.

With an EV, however, it is not that simple.

Charging stations become scarcer as you travel into rural areas. Even when you finally find one, someone else may already be using it, or it may be out of order.

Charging also takes time. Even a fast charger requires about 30 minutes, and depending on the conditions, the wait can be even longer.

If two vehicles are already ahead of you, you may end up waiting in line for more than an hour.

The video showed the travelers searching for places to charge on the way to tourist destinations and constantly monitoring the remaining battery level.

At that point, the purpose of the trip has been reversed.

Instead of charging in order to reach tourist destinations, it begins to feel as if you are passing through tourist destinations in order to charge.

The Battery Drains Uphill—and the Range Estimate Cannot Be Trusted

Another thing I found interesting in the video was the energy consumption on mountain roads.

Battery consumption rises sharply when the road climbs uphill.

When you think about it, this is only natural. Lifting a heavy vehicle up a slope requires that much more energy.

Regenerative braking can recover some energy on the way downhill, but it does not return everything consumed during the climb.

The problem is that the estimated range shown on the dashboard is not necessarily reliable.

For example, even if the display says the car can travel another 100 kilometers, a long uphill stretch can greatly reduce the distance it will actually cover.

The battery percentage and the prediction of how many kilometers remain are two different things.

Fuel economy in a gasoline car also changes with road conditions. But because charging locations for EVs are limited, a wrong estimate creates much more anxiety.

You may be driving along a beautiful mountain road, yet your eyes remain fixed on the battery gauge.

You came to the mountains to enjoy the spectacular scenery, but the trip turns into an exercise in watching the numbers fall.

Europe’s All-EV Strategy Was Unrealistic After All

Considering these inconveniences raises questions about the rapid shift toward EVs that Europe has pursued.

Europe once announced a policy that would effectively make EVs the main option for new car sales after 2035, while gasoline and hybrid vehicles were treated as if they were obsolete.

But high vehicle prices, insufficient charging infrastructure, and sluggish demand have led to moves to reconsider the original plan.

Demand for hybrid vehicles, meanwhile, remains solid.

Some people praise this by saying, “Toyota had remarkable foresight,” but I see it a little differently.

Rather than possessing some extraordinary ability to see the future, perhaps Toyota simply made the obvious decision.

There are not enough charging stations. Charging takes time. Long-distance travel remains inconvenient.

Under those conditions, abruptly switching every vehicle to an EV is unrealistic.

So gasoline and hybrid vehicles remain available.

That is not a stroke of genius. Look at reality, and it is an entirely ordinary business decision.

What is more puzzling is why Europe’s automotive industry and policymakers pushed so hard toward an all-EV future.

People Buy Cars to Travel, Not to Fulfill Environmental Policy

There are uses for which EVs are well suited.

If you can charge at home and travel only short distances each day, an EV is probably a quiet and comfortable vehicle.

Long-distance travel is a different matter.

You want to go where you choose, stop wherever you like, and return without worrying about the time.

That freedom is one of the great attractions of owning a car.

With an EV, however, you must consider not only your destination, but also the locations and availability of charging facilities.

As technology advances and charging infrastructure improves, the situation will eventually change.

But if policy forces the transition to EVs while ignoring today’s inconveniences, consumers will not follow.

Watching this video reminded me of that once again.

Toyota was not exceptionally clever. Europe may simply have turned something that was obviously unrealistic into a grand policy and shot itself in the foot.

People buying a car are not looking first for a grand story about saving the planet in the future. They want to know they can make it home safely from today’s destination.