I'm from NZ where 640km range is plenty, for even our gnarliest terrain, so I'm stoked. I have to say, this is a bit dismissive out of hand.
> urban bros that do casual offroading on well-developed trails with associated infrastructure.
Yeah, no, that's not what I'm talking about. Not everyone commenting here is from the US.
I'm talking about things like driving up braided riverbeds to places like this, Mathias Hut, just downstream of a glacier or two. [0]
Or like this, Avoca Hut, in an isolated valley two days walk in otherwise. [1]
Or some of the very rugged routes on the West Coast of the South Island / Te Waipounamu. [2]
Trips like this in the Southern Alps. [3]
Or Napoleon Hill. [4]
640km range would get me to that route, from the east side of my island via an alpine pass [5], through the route, and back home again, on one charge, which is awesome.
We don't have the same scale of distance as the USA, that's true, but we have the same scale of challenging terrain, so please don't be so quick to dismiss our use case as "urban bros doing casual offroading", just because the distances are lower, please.
As for well developed 4WD trails, lol.
I used to be a ranger in a national park here, and American tourists were routinely gobsmacked that our tramping (hiking) routes (trails) didn't have bridges, (and also, often didn't have an actual track or trail, you just picked your own way up the riverbed) and you'd have to walk through the rivers - and no, don't take your boots off, because you're going to cross that river another 5 - 10 times, you just have to accept you're going to have wet feet, welcome to NZ hiking.
So if we don't have that many well developed hiking trails, we certainly don't have well-developed off-roading trails.
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.
> urban bros that do casual offroading on well-developed trails with associated infrastructure.
Yeah, no, that's not what I'm talking about. Not everyone commenting here is from the US.
I'm talking about things like driving up braided riverbeds to places like this, Mathias Hut, just downstream of a glacier or two. [0]
Or like this, Avoca Hut, in an isolated valley two days walk in otherwise. [1]
Or some of the very rugged routes on the West Coast of the South Island / Te Waipounamu. [2]
Trips like this in the Southern Alps. [3]
Or Napoleon Hill. [4]
640km range would get me to that route, from the east side of my island via an alpine pass [5], through the route, and back home again, on one charge, which is awesome.
We don't have the same scale of distance as the USA, that's true, but we have the same scale of challenging terrain, so please don't be so quick to dismiss our use case as "urban bros doing casual offroading", just because the distances are lower, please.
As for well developed 4WD trails, lol.
I used to be a ranger in a national park here, and American tourists were routinely gobsmacked that our tramping (hiking) routes (trails) didn't have bridges, (and also, often didn't have an actual track or trail, you just picked your own way up the riverbed) and you'd have to walk through the rivers - and no, don't take your boots off, because you're going to cross that river another 5 - 10 times, you just have to accept you're going to have wet feet, welcome to NZ hiking.
So if we don't have that many well developed hiking trails, we certainly don't have well-developed off-roading trails.
[0]: https://dea83hfeh03sc.cloudfront.net/media/3171/conversions/...
[1]: https://www.doc.govt.nz/thumbs/hero/contentassets/10442f8efa...
[2]: https://nz4wd.co.nz/article/hard-drive-denniston
[3]: https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/destinations/nz/97642423/brea...
[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnZ6dMg4yvs
[5]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Arthur%2...