Really useful if you want to drive from Roanoke, VA to Cleveland, OH at a steady 19 mph. In the summer.
300 real world miles in dead of Norwegian winter allows 200 mile trips without range anxiety which is really useful. Just look at Bjorn's videos.
110 kWh battery pack allows supercharging at optimal speeds for longer amount of time/miles and better performance.
People buying $90k-$130k sedans want cars without compromises. And Teslas have to compete with the ICE competition.
BMW M6, MB AMG CLS, and Audi S7 are doing 0-60 in ~3.4 seconds and 500 mile plus range.
The only reason anyone has started quoting range for gas cars is because they want to make themselves look better than the superior EV competition - and this effort has been led by VW, who have been the least supportive of the large manufacturers when it comes to EVs, as they are doubling down on TDI. And an M6 gets 16 mpg and has an 18.5 gallon tank from a quick google search. That is not 500 miles, it's even just under 300 miles. I would check the other cars, but I suspect the story is the same for them. People tend to make up huge numbers for gas cars because the numbers are obfuscated in gas cars - in an EV, you have a nice round number you can look at in front of you, and this is rare for a gas car. The reason it's rare for a gas car is because nobody really cares about range in a gas car. The only reason you would want more range in a gas car is so that you can go more days without having to go to a gas station, which is a burdensome experience - and yet, almost zero manufacturers put 500 mile tanks in their cars because even though it would be easy for them to do so, it would be silly. Also, you don't spend days away from fueling stations in an EV, because most people will park it at one every night.
As I already mentioned, giving a little more range so that you can have 300 miles in all conditions might make some sort of sense for 1% of drivers. But Tesla isn't making a car for 1% of drivers, or at least that isn't the intent to only sell to 1% of drivers. The intent is to make a car with the most appeal they can get, to the broadest audience they can appeal to. And most people aren't going to want to pay tens of thousands of dollars for superfluous batteries.
Also, Bjorn's video shows that even in the harshest conditions, he was able to get 255 miles. If the rated range is 265 miles and he's getting 255 in Norwegian winter, then I do not understand what people's problem is with Model S range. In my personal experience, driving long distances, I have been able to get close to ideal (not rated) range numbers with normal freeway driving in Southern California in both the Roadster and Model S. And when we compare it to the vast majority of cars which have "range" clustered around 300 (not 500) miles per tank, this does not seem unacceptable. Especially because EVs don't even need to have "range" similar to gas cars per tank, for many reasons which have been correctly mentioned by other posters here.
Regardless, I have made my prediction and I encourage you to make note of it and see that it will be correct in the future, and I tend not to make predictions unless I'm pretty certain they'll happen. EVs will not have continually increasing range, even Tesla who have hung their hat on the "premium range" peg, and manufacturers across the board will prefer cost weight space and efficiency savings to superfluous range numbers except possibly in very niche products. The focus will be on quicker charging, as it already is.
edit: here is the data I referred to earlier, showing how many miles people drive on a daily basis, the graphs on the second page are the most instructive here
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us...lications 2012/2012-01-0489 SAE published.pdf
In which case, are we paying for range or are we paying for the illusion that we could driver farther should we need to? I actually do like the roadster response to this, which is an extra 10% reserve you can activate for range mode, which is normally invisible because its healthier for the battery that way. I think people just need to get to the point where they are okay driving their car down to 1% soc. A lot of newer drivers aren't comfortable with this, but it's fine if you only do it every so often, and if you know how to drive your car more efficiently so you can squeeze a bit more range out of a low battery by slowing down etc. This is why I think when the public in general gets more ev experience, they will be more comfortable with lower ranges.
