What's the main thing that scares people away from these cars? Well, cost I suppose, but a close second has got to be range anxiety. It certainly was for me. And so I don't think you can blame us new guys for continuing to be concerned about it and I imagine we are going to continue to be concerned about it until we have enough miles under our belt to be completely comfortable with it as you more experienced drivers are.
Sorry, but that is nonsense and doesn't fly. Anxiety would be running low and worrying about whether there is any place you would be able to fill up. That is the opposite of what is going on here. In this case, there is a Supercharger right there along the route. Just use it!!! You can recharge a bit quickly without any worry or getting low at all. It's the least anxiety way of doing this. With having a lot of experience and miles under your belt, you can get used to trying more risky long distances that don't have Superchargers, but for no experience, you just use them, and it's dead simple and no stress.
As someone alluded to earlier, much of this is about expectations. Someone sets it in their mind that they are going to skip all the Superchargers and take no breaks. Then, when they find out they need to, it's "AUGGGHHH! I don't get to do what I want. This sucks!" But if someone had started off with the understanding of taking a quick charge stop in the middle of the trip, they go use the bathroom, grab an iced tea, and get back on the road, and it pleasantly fits their expectations and doesn't feel inconvenient at all.
But optimum can be defined in several ways. For someone to whom time is far and away the most important or only consideration a planning algorithm would consider whether multiple brief stops keeping the battery in the region where it charges most rapidly will get you there quicker than fewer stops with longer charging times at the slower rates required as full battery is approached.
Ah, yes, that is called "splash and dash", and is definitely the quicker way, where you only fill up to about 60 or 70% or so, and the charging rates are always really crazy fast, and it doesn't feel cumbersome or boring and is most time efficient. The trip planner in the car usually tries to do the opposite, recommending the fewest, longest charging stop and skipping Superchargers, and is basically a pretty bad way to go, unless that is your long planned meal stop anyway.
For others having to stop at all, as in the case of OP's wife, is a big PITA and thus having to stop at all renders the trip sub optimal.
This gets into an aspect that there is no one-size-fits-all vehicle that is perfect and excels for every type of use. A Mazda Miata can't tow your boat. A Corvette can't transport 5 people. A big dually F-350 pickup truck is awful for trying to maneuver and park. A big box truck has great carrying capacity, but you would hate the horrible gas mileage as a daily driver. A motorcycle is fun, but kind of dangerous and will be really unpleasant in the rain.
So for this use, if someone is determined that their ultimate priority is pounding out the most miles per minute for many hours on end, with the least amount of minutes of stops possible, nothing else that exists can beat liquid fuel at this point in history. You should probably rent a gas vehicle if you're trying to get in a 15-17 hour drive in a day in a condensed time frame. You also need to bring protein bars and pee in a bottle. But the tradeoff with electric vehicles is that 90%+ of the year, when you are not traveling, it is
more convenient than a gasoline car. And then on those few trips a year, they are a little less convenient than a gasoline car.