That looks amazing! I haven’t been to NZ yet. I was not trying to dismiss your offroad bonafides.
It is the distance scale in the US that makes the difference. In the mountain west, you can blow through a range budget of 640km really easily. There are weather and other events that add 100-200km of unplanned travel that you can’t know ahead of time. There is also no Internet connectivity in much of it! The sparsity of charging stations in more remote regions just makes it worse. If you find you need to re-route, you may be a very long way from the closest accessible charging station and it may be in a direction you did not intend to go.
I wasn’t trying to be dismissive. The US has unique challenges for EV range due to its scale. There isn’t much margin for error on range, especially if the road closes due to avalanches, flooding, etc. You can find yourself hundreds of kilometers from the nearest thing resembling civilization at inopportune times.
It is the distance scale in the US that makes the difference. In the mountain west, you can blow through a range budget of 640km really easily. There are weather and other events that add 100-200km of unplanned travel that you can’t know ahead of time. There is also no Internet connectivity in much of it! The sparsity of charging stations in more remote regions just makes it worse. If you find you need to re-route, you may be a very long way from the closest accessible charging station and it may be in a direction you did not intend to go.
I wasn’t trying to be dismissive. The US has unique challenges for EV range due to its scale. There isn’t much margin for error on range, especially if the road closes due to avalanches, flooding, etc. You can find yourself hundreds of kilometers from the nearest thing resembling civilization at inopportune times.