Electric cars are a hot topic for both technology enthusiasts and environmental advocates. Even though they may not become a mainstream commodity anytime soon, the industry is certainly evolving quickly. Last week, two drivers drove an electric car coast-to-coast in the US. They did this quicker than many expected.

Electric Cars can Have Some Pickup

One of the major downsides to electric cars in the eyes of the public is how these vehicles are relatively slow. People waste valuable time due to having to recharge the car’s battery at charging stations. Thankfully, the United States is home to quite a few of those stations, which makes finding a charging station painless. However, solving the long charging times are a different matter entirely.

However, long charging times do not mean electric cars cannot be driven quickly. Last week, two drivers set a new record for taking an electric car coast-to-coast in the US. While they did have to charge the car at charging stations here and there, it took them just under 52 hours to travel from Los Angeles to New York City. Keep in mind the previous electric card record for doing so was 55 hours, which is still respectable.

Additionally, the two drivers used a Tesla Model S 85D, which does not have a very long range compared to some other electric cars. All of this begs the question where they made up so much time. There was some degree of luck involved in the process. However, the biggest gains were made thanks to their discipline.

Only stopping once to eat during the trip certainly helped them shave off some time. They also kept driving around the clock, which is the only way to tackle this kind of challenge. Last but not least, there was some optimization of the car’s range combined with charging station locations which helped them arrive in New York City in under 52 hours. The lack of traffic congestion certainly helped as well, although it is believed they would have set a new record regardless of traffic.

Even though this new record is about a week old, there are already plans on the table to shave off more time during future experiments. Tesla’s 100D model may help bring down the time required to just under 51 hours or less. Additionally, faster-charging stations will have a big impact on these “records” as well. However, it will take some time until we see faster charges of electric vehicles.

To put all of this into perspective, it took 68 hours to drive an electric car coast-to-coast back in 2013. Four years later, and that time has been reduced by nearly 25%, which is amazing. The coming years will be interesting for the electric car industry. We will have to wait a while for thousand-mile drives to take less than eight hours.