This summer, I drove from New Hampshire to western Maryland to see family. I made the trip twice. It is 614 miles and usually takes between 10 and 12 hours depending on traffic. This is a trip I am accustomed to taking, and I am well prepared with CDs, books, and practiced patience.

The first time I went to Maryland this year, I went in an electric car. The second, I took a gas car. The following is my reflection on these experiences and the differences and similarities of the two.

The biggest objection I hear about the practicality of electric vehicles is the need to charge. However, on this trip, we didn’t have an issue finding chargers. The car gave us a route that included charging stations, and there a number of EV charger planning systems online if we didn’t want to use the car system. I had the bonus of there being a charger both at the house I was visiting and in the town, meaning I could arrive at my destination and immediately plug in.

Similarly, we didn’t have a problem finding gas stations. This may seem obvious, but it is worth noting that gas stations are common, as they did not grow up out of the ground. The fact that gas stations can be found pretty much anywhere is the result of decades of planning, consumer trends, and economic pressure. Chargers are the same. I won’t deny that gas stations are easier to find, especially in less EV-friendly parts of the US, but that is not inevitable.

Something to note is that you don’t have to ‘fill up’ in the same way. You can start your drive at 100% when you charge at your house. Similarly, you don’t have to get gas last minute before arriving at your home on the trip back. You can just arrive with a low battery and plug in, ready to go out the next morning.

Here is one benefit for electric cars: they won’t run out of battery when stuck in traffic. A gas car needs the engine to be running (and consuming fuel) to power the car interior – air conditioning, heat, music, navigation, etc. Thus, being stuck in traffic, especially if it is stop-and-go traffic, will use up your tank, even if you aren’t going very far. By contrast, EV batteries use very little power when at a standstill. The interior features are able to be kept running with very little power. Any time extra energy is generated to move the car forward and then stopped due to traffic, that extra amount is put back into the battery. It is not lost to the air.

When charging, the car will usually tell us how much additional battery we need to continue our trip, and how much time that will take. This is often where I see people get frustrated when discussing their hypothetical EV purchase (I don’t hear this argument from people who own EVs, but perhaps they also worry about this.) People do not want to wait to charge. They would rather just fill up the gas tank and go.

Here is the thing: If you are on a road trip, you are going to have to stop anyway. Bathroom stops, grabbing food, or even just stretching my legs means that I would have stopped at least two or three times on this trip anyway. If I need to charge an electric car, that stop is simply combined with the stops you were going take. How long the car will take to charge depends on how much battery you need to continue your trip.

It is possible that you will have to wait in line to charge. This is not something that has occurred on long road trips I have been on, but if there is a lot of people going to one place, there may be a backup at chargers. I experienced this during my drive up to see the solar eclipse this spring. Lines also exist at gas stations, though the charge times of EVs can build up wait times.

Most car trips are for the purpose of running errands or commuting. Most people who own cars are not going on a road trip every single week. Thus, the use case for EVs has tended to focus on limited drives. However, people often buy with the idea of those exceptions of duration and car use in mind. So it is important to note that it is entirely possible and indeed convenient to use an EV for long drives.

Of course, I would love to take an alternate form of transportation: trains. Unfortunately, the US does not have a mature enough train network to make the trip feasible. Until then, I will continue to make the drive to Maryland, and an electric car is a perfectly fine way to do it.