0
Take a moment to ask yourself: When was the last time you drove 300-plus miles without stopping? For reference, that means tackling a five- or six-hour journey, like L.A. to San Francisco or Houston to New Orleans, in one shot. Unless you have a bladder of steel and an obsession with making good time, there’s a good chance you’re making at least one pit stop on the way.
But if you wanted to, soon you could drive that far in one shot without burning gas.
Electric cars are reaching a point where such trips are nearly within reach. A few years ago, many if not most consumer EVs came with 200-some miles per charge. Then many automakers introduced the option to pay more for the longer-range battery, which extended driving range to 300 miles or more. Suddenly, more models have begun to top the 400-mile plateau.
The latest eye-popping range number comes from the 2027 BMW i3. This is the fully electrified version of the brand’s 3 Series, one of the icons of the automotive world. The launch version of that car comes with 440 miles of range, per the Environmental Protection Agency’s rating. It joins vehicles such as the Lucid Air, Chevy Silverado EV Extended Range, and Rivian’s Dual Max trucks and SUVs in topping 400 miles of maximum range. These are high-end EVs out of the reach of most buyers. Yet their mere availability suggests an automotive tipping point: At that point, an EV can go about as far as you’d even want to travel without a break.
To understand the importance of this milestone, remember what range numbers really mean. The EPA’s rating comes from testing an EV over a variety of driving conditions, from city stop-and-go to interstate road tripping. If you do all your driving around town, or stick to the speed limit on a 55-mile-per-hour country highway, then you might reach your car’s mileage estimate. But speed kills range. Fly down the freeway at 70 miles per hour and you won’t come anywhere close to the stated maximum.
Real-world testing makes this abundantly clear. The new Chevrolet Bolt is rated at 262 miles, impressive for a little car. Traveling 75 miles per hour, though, it makes a hair under 200 miles. In a much, much bigger vehicle, Chevy’s engineers got the Silverado EV to go 1,000 miles on a single charge by driving it 25 miles per hour; at realistic speeds, it might go 400-some. My own Tesla Model 3 has made the speed penalty abundantly clear over the years. Initially rated at 240 miles, it has never been able to travel more than about 150 miles at speeds above 70 miles per hour. Keep in mind that charging speed slows drastically as the battery approaches full. On a road trip, you’ll recharge only to 80% or 90% of capacity because it’s not worth it to wait 10 or 20 minutes for the last trickle of electricity.
The upshot: You want your EV to start with a big range number, because the number shrinks. The EPA rating is just a starting point — one that invariably wanes as the years go by. An EV with 400-plus miles of range will still have 300-some when it gets old. That’s a huge deal compared to the previous generation: Older cars that started in the 200s might see road trips become annoying ordeals if they drop below 200 “miles” per charge.
Three years ago this month, I wrote that people should buy as much EPA range as they could afford and that 300 was the magic number. That way, the real-world range you probably care about most — how long you can drive down the interstate without stopping — is at least 200 actual miles. After three hours on the road, you might be ready for a 20 or 30-minute break to stretch your legs and recharge the battery, anyway.
The arrival of more 400-mile ranges pushes EVs even closer to parity with combustion vehicles when it comes to road trip convenience. The more miles you have to work with, the more your trips and stops are decided by your own happiness and comfort rather than by the need to wait for more juice. Remember, too, that used EVs are all the rage right now as Americans seek affordable ways to avoid paying for gasoline. An older EV’s remaining range matters a lot to its second and third owner. A car that starts with 400 miles of range might still deliver an acceptable number of miles per charge even when it has hundreds of thousands of miles on the odometer.
The other thing is, battery capacity isn’t just about driving. An EV can use its stored energy for just about anything: to air-condition the dog while you eat dinner in a non-dog-friendly restaurant, to back up your home’s power supply during a blackout, to keep everyone comfortable and entertained while you wait in the parking lot, or to use its cameras to record footage of anyone who might mess with the vehicle. The more range, the more an EV can use energy for other purposes and still have plenty saved for driving.
Of course, the most powerful upshot of 400-mile electric cars is the death of range anxiety. The fear of running out of juice in the middle of nowhere — or of making an annoying number of charging stops with a lower-range EV — has kept many electric-curious buyers away. Many are turning back toward hybrid cars and even the forthcoming wave of extended-range EVs that use a gas engine as a backup generator. But worries about range and the steady but slow growth of America’s charging networks start to fade away when you realize many gasoline-burning cars would run out of fuel before your 400-mile EV hits empty.
