New Answers To Common Electric Car Questions

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Now that I’ve been driving an electric car (a Tesla Model S) around on a regular basis for a few weeks, I’m getting bored with the most common questions. Over and over again…

“How far can you drive?”

“How long does it take to charge?”

“How fast can it go?” (max speed)

“How fast is it?” (acceleration)

I had already picked up some fun/clever responses over the past few years from CleanTechnica readers and EV forums, but now I’m eager to come up with some new ones and vary my responses a bit more. Below are answers to each of these four questions, answers that I either picked up somewhere over the past few years or just came up with. Drop more in the comments below. Let’s see how much fun we can have!

“How far can you drive?”

Around the world. (Just have to charge up whenever the battery is low.)

As far as there’s land.

As far as a petrol/diesel car.

How far can a bird fly?

To anywhere in Europe … that’s not separated by vast expanses of water.

With a full battery, the rated range is 425 kilometers, but you have this cool feature that you can actually put electricity back into the battery to drive further.

You can drive for several hours without charging, but then you have to use magic to put electricity back into the battery.

Depends on how upset my wife is.

“How long does it take to charge?”

I don’t know — I’m always doing other things while it’s charging.

Good question. I’m not sure. I don’t pay much attention to that since I always get caught up with other things while it’s happening — work, meetings with friends/colleagues, family time, dinner, sleep.

I don’t know — I’m always doing other things while it’s charging.

A few seconds — I basically just plug in, do other things, and then unplug when I’m done or ready to go.

A few seconds when plugging in and a few seconds when unplugging.

It’s hard to tell, because I always start doing other things after it starts charging and I don’t keep track of the time.

Much shorter than the time it sits parked and not charging.

“How fast can it go?” (max speed)

I have no idea — I drove it on the Autobahn faster than “the competition” and had a lot of fun but I didn’t check how fast it could go.

I have no idea — faster than it should.

Good question. It feels like a rocket ship but I never tried to get it going fast enough to fly into space.

Faster than I’ve ever driven a car.

Faster than I think is safe.

When it’s driving itself or when I’m driving?

Faster than a roller coaster, that’s for sure.

Faster than my wife approves.

It depends how many policemen are following me.

“How fast is it?” (acceleration)

Well, it’s bloody insane how quick it is.

Quicker than almost anything on the road.

Quicker than any other car you’ve seen this year.

It feels like a spaceship when driving or like a roller coaster as a passenger.

Quicker than almost any Porsche, Lamborghini, or Ferrari ever produced.

Quicker than should be legal.

Quicker than a Superman on steroids.

Quick enough to make a Porsche cry.

Quick enough to make you pee your pants.

Images via Tesla Shuttle