We are shopping for a new car for my wife. She does insurance sales and theoretically will be back in the field someday (as restrictions lift or pressure during open enrollment demands it). While most of her work is within 50 miles of the house, her territory actually stretches 150 miles across and a 75 miles north/south. That creates a different sets of issues but the volume of driving keeps leading me back to EV and hybrid options. Of course, most of that stretch of land is rural. That means the only charging options are on the west, east, and north central portions of the territory. That creates a different potential issue but then isn't range anxiety standard for those of us that have never owned an EV?
So back to my question, the primary road she travels west to east is hilly and rural. I know deer aren't picked up by the car but what about the rest of the conditions of country roads? They tend to be less lighted, fewer cars, more trucks, have faded center lines, the road splits into large medians (or hills) separating directions, and then merges back to two lanes side by side etc... When we test drove Tesla recently, I was impressed with how well it handled fairly busy highway driving and obviously it was fun to drive when I was the primary one controlling it. My wife is actually a very good driver but I like the idea of the car being able to take some of the details of driving off her hands when she is coming back from a long day at work (still has to watch for those deer) but most of the talk I see about it are in interstate driving. Can it handle country roads at night or are we not there yet?
So back to my question, the primary road she travels west to east is hilly and rural. I know deer aren't picked up by the car but what about the rest of the conditions of country roads? They tend to be less lighted, fewer cars, more trucks, have faded center lines, the road splits into large medians (or hills) separating directions, and then merges back to two lanes side by side etc... When we test drove Tesla recently, I was impressed with how well it handled fairly busy highway driving and obviously it was fun to drive when I was the primary one controlling it. My wife is actually a very good driver but I like the idea of the car being able to take some of the details of driving off her hands when she is coming back from a long day at work (still has to watch for those deer) but most of the talk I see about it are in interstate driving. Can it handle country roads at night or are we not there yet?
) curves. AP works well but with the speed limit restriction may be too slow, depending on her expectation. As noted, it’s not the intended application, so you would expect less than ideal results.
