Until chargers are as common as gas stations and charging takes five minutes, I'd see a lot of value in a battery that could get me through a road trip without ever needing to recharge.
You’re never more than about 100 miles from a Tesla Supercharger station in the US, and while charge times are roughly 20-30 minutes, it hasn’t been an issue for the ~20k miles we’ve driven traveling the US.
Sure, it’s a bit longer than a 5 minute fill up, but between bathroom breaks, food, coffee, it’s not that much longer and we no longer have gas station trips when around town (charging our Teslas at home). Trade offs. Seems like the amount of folks who are waiting for 400 mile range EVs is exceedingly small.
You get used to it, but it is fair to call it a significant time cost. When we take the Tesla, we stop halfway to grandma's house for 20-30 minutes, then we stop again on the way back. Sure, it's a convenient break for the kids to go pee, but it's only a 2.5 hour trip each way and in our F150 we'd do the whole thing without any fuel or pee stops and it'd be fine. So it costs a solid hour, or 20% more time.
400 miles isn't that far. It's approximately the distance from Minneapolis, MN to Milwaukee, WI, which is a trip that I've done nonstop. It takes around 5.5 hours, which isn't too bad. Start around noon and arrive just a little before dinner.
Minneapolis to Chicago is a bit longer (a little over 400 miles), and takes about 6 hours. For that I'd probably need to stop somewhere to eat.
Assuming you pee at the origin and the destination, and it's freeway driving, that's two rounds of three hours between the bathroom. As long as the weather is nice, and you don't overhydrate, that doesn't seem unreasonable.
