Decades from now, people will look back at the time when vehicles were once powered by fossil fuels. And they’ll regard those vehicles the same way we see the practice of using leeches as medicine.

“Can you believe they actually drove millions of cars with gasoline?” they will say. “People did that even when they knew burning gas was making the global climate so hot and unstable that large parts of the planet became increasingly unlivable.”

When that time comes, electric vehicles will be the norm and gas a rarity, just as sophisticated medical treatments have replaced leeches that once bled unsuspecting patients to death.

Perhaps by then, a few folks will also recall a footnote to the bygone era of burning fossil fuels: “It’s so weird,” they might say. “People used to worry how far they would be able to drive an EV until the battery ran out.” Today there persists the widespread belief that electric vehicles are too limited for anything but short excursions. The Great American Road Trip? That’s for gas-guzzling RVs, not cars run on batteries, right?

Not anymore.

Unless you drive a late-model EV yourself, you’re probably under the impression that so-called “range anxiety” is still a thing. I was, too, until I leased an electric car and realized how easy it has become to take an EV on a long trip.

Several factors drove me to lease an EV this summer. One was the successful Republican push to eliminate federal EV tax credits as of Sep. 30. (Green Mountain Power still offers qualified customers rebates up to $3,200.) Another factor was my longstanding effort to reduce my own greenhouse gas footprint.

Another factor was the smoke.

I’d been driving a plug-in hybrid Hyundai Tucson. I decided to go fully electric during another summer of smoky skies from wildfires in Canada — which polluted our air for weeks on end and were driven by climate change.

Voting as a consumer seemed to be one of the few ways to make a difference amid the choking smoke.

Even with Trump’s war on climate action, it’s predicted that by 2030 there will be electric cars that have a range of 600 miles, more than most gas-powered vehicles. America already has about 12,000 fast-charging stations. A powerful consortium plans to build 30,000 more at “rechargeries” (chargers, canopies and retail outlets) over the next five years.

In Addison County today, there are a few dozen public chargers. High-speed chargers are available in Middlebury and are abundant in Vergennes. But what’s it like today for an EV driver on a long trip? My first real test came when I decided to drive to and from mid-coast Maine.

Vermonters who drive to Maine usually spend much of the trip in New Hampshire. Which is fine if you’re driving a gas-powered car. But before this year, traversing the Granite State could make for a stressful journey between fast chargers unless you had a Tesla.

That has changed in the electrically brave new world of 2025: Tesla is opening up its expansive network of chargers to other EVs — making it much more practical to use a non-Tesla EV to travel long distances.

With a summertime battery range approaching 350 miles, I could theoretically make it all the way from here to Portland, Maine, without recharging. But I was new to the process and didn’t know if I could believe the manufacturer’s range estimates.

I blasted my way over Middlebury Gap to I-89 and onto I-93, stopping at the New Hampshire state rest stop to get coffee and recharge at the Tesla stations identified on my PlugShare app. The app reported plenty of open stations.

But there was a problem: I had failed to notice that this bank of stations was reserved only for Teslas.

Nonetheless, I knew there was another bank of Tesla chargers open to all EVs at a Target store just four miles away. Zipping down there, I plugged in, got a quick to-go bite at a Wendy’s across the street, and was on my way, fully recharged in 20 minutes.

Cruising to and from my destination of Boothbay Harbor — a nice town but one without fast chargers — I stopped to charge and have lunch in Brunswick, Maine, at the popular Wild Oats Cafe. I charged again at the Target in New Hampshire on the way home.

I learned on my Maine trip that the typical rookie answer to range anxiety is to charge more frequently, even when there are many miles left in the battery. One nice thing I’ve discovered since then: It dissolves range anxiety knowing there is an available high-speed charger within reach. Just in the past year, the combination of reliable apps, stronger car batteries, and the rapidly expanding charger network have greatly eased EV charging anxiety.

On a trip a couple weeks ago to kayak in the Adirondacks, I drove through the High Peaks and back home without bothering to recharge. Nonetheless, once I was back home, I plugged in my home charger … even though I still had nearly 150 miles of range left on the Kia. Just in case I decided to make a last-minute trip to Maine.

FUN FACTS ABOUT ELECTRIC VEHICLES

While most of us think of EVs as a new technology, the first commercially available electric vehicle was produced in 1894. It was called the Electrobat. And no, it didn’t come out to fly around on Halloween and scare the children.

Among other names of early EVs were the Henney Kilowatt, the Electrovair (based on the ill-fated “unsafe at any speed” Corvair), the Corbin Sparrow and the Commuta-Car. The current burst of EVs emerged in 2011 with the Nissan Leaf.

As concerns rose about air pollution from cars and trucks, in the late 20th century it was clear that just cleaning up gas vehicle emissions would not be enough to slow climate-warming emissions.

Manufacturers, incentivized by public pressure and legislation, responded with diesels, including VW’s fraudulent scheme to fake emission tests. Makers also offered increasingly popular gas hybrid cars that benefited from regenerative braking.

Next came plug-in hybrids, which are slightly cleaner because they can be charged and run for around 30 miles on battery-only before switching to hybrid electric/gas power. But hybrids don’t do much to solve the gas-powered transportation that is Vermont’s biggest source of greenhouse gas pollution.

On a global scale, automobile and truck transportation is a massive contributor to the highly dangerous changes we are experiencing to weather and climate. If we want to do our part to substantially reduce a piece of that pollution, we need to switch to ride sharing, public transit (a difficult option in rural Vermont), an electric vehicle — or all three.

Although EVs are more expensive and dirtier to manufacture, operating and maintenance costs (e.g, no oil changes) are significantly lower. And during the lifecycle of the vehicle, they are cleaner than gas-powered ones. That’s true even if the EV is charged on a relatively dirty electrical grid where coal and natural gas dominate. For its part, Vermont has one of the cleanest grids in the nation.

Globally, about two-thirds of electric vehicles are produced in China, which also provides more than 85% of battery capacity. Chinese vehicles can’t be legally sold in the U.S.

America under Trump and the GOP is pursuing increased emphasis on the older and dirtier technologies of coal, oil and natural gas. China, by comparison, is in the process of lowering its greenhouse gas emissions, especially in new vehicles.

Greg Dennis usually charges his EV at home in Cornwall. Email: [email protected].