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The 2026 Volvo EX30 has a usable range of around 250 miles, or so says the EPA. That number doesn't sound like a lot in a world of 300+ mile EVs. It definitely doesn't sound like a lot when you're staring up at the Rocky Mountains. But I wanted to challenge the notion that we all need an electric car with more than 300 miles of range for that "what if" road trip, so off I went.
EV Charging Can Still Come With A Few Asterisks
Let's get a few quick qualifiers out of the way: your experience on your EV road trip will almost certainly be different than mine. I call Colorado home, and Colorado is a blue state that has invested heavily into EV charging and infrastructure, especially in its cities and along its highway corridors.
Doing this trip into the Canadian Rockies might look totally different, but the end result here is that I benefited from a strong network of chargers at a variety of outputs and had a car that came with both a CCS-style port and an included NACS (Tesla) adapter to give me Supercharger access. In short, it's pretty much the best-case scenario for the 180+ mile drive from Denver to Crested Butte, Colorado, as you can see from the 2022 map of fast-chargers along Colorado's highway corridors below.
The Drive
I'd selected Crested Butte to attempt to get away from some of Colorado's wildfires, but the route just so happened to be nearly exactly the EX30's full usable range by the time I'd stopped to pick up a friend. All told, the route covered 209 miles across what was an estimated 4 hours and 47 minutes.
For the drive, I'd opted to eschew planning my own route - I let the Volvo pick, mostly because I think that's how most folks do this sort of thing. It said we needed to make one stop: a fast-charging station at a Love's gas station in Buena Vista, Colorado. According to the EX30's GPS, that left us with 3 hours, 2 minutes of driving time before stopping to charge for just 10 minutes at the fast-charger and then moving on.
Here's the thing: I was very over driving by the time we rolled into a Love's gas station (think of it like a slightly less-clean Buc-ee's) to go charge at the 150-kilowatt fast chargers at the back of the gas station. We ate a crappy lunch of gas station charcuterie consisting of American favorites like Pringles, a gross-looking turkey sandwich, some protein bars, and a longing look at the beer aisle. By the time we'd eaten, paid, and gotten a few more snacks, the car went from 5% charge to 72% charge.
The Takeaway? You'll Be Out Of Battery Before The Car
This is the crux of the great EV range debate: by the time you've driven any appreciable distance and put a dent in your car's battery, you'll want a pit stop too. So here's the trick: a simple adjustment of your planning means it's not hard to do long-distance trips with an EV.
On the return trip, having no desire to enjoy the cornucopia of weak, damp gas station food that awaited at the fast chargers, we got lunch to go from a sandwich joint instead. I got home with 25% battery left because our lunch stop went a bit longer. In the end, yes, there could have been a few more fast chargers, as things got a little busy on the way home, but there were other options in even the tiny town of Buena Vista. No one got stranded. No one ran out of battery. The lesson, really, is that the car has probably got better cardio than you do.
