Richard Herod III, an automotive expert at CarSoup.com, is pointing Minnesota drivers toward a simpler summer road trip: one that runs entirely on a single EV charge. As drivers across the state gear up for warm-weather travel, Herod's guidance takes direct aim at range anxiety, the hesitation that keeps many electric car owners closer to home than they would like.

A single-charge trip means exactly what it sounds like. You pick a destination that sits within your vehicle's usable range, drive there, and drive back without plugging in along the way. No charging apps, no waiting for a free fast charger. The battery handles the whole journey.

That framing flips the usual approach to EV travel. Most range planning starts with the charging network: where the stations are, how far apart they sit, and how long the stop will take. A single-charge trip skips that entire calculation. The destination is chosen to fit the car, rather than the car being routed around the chargers.

The case for one-charge trips

Minnesota is a natural place for this advice to land. The state's summer driving habits revolve around weekend trips to lake cabins, campgrounds, and small-town events, often along two-lane highways that run long stretches between services. Those middle-distance drives are exactly what EVs handle best in warm weather. Summer is when electric range is at its peak; winter cold cuts battery performance sharply, a fact north-country drivers know well. For a Minnesota EV owner, July is the best-case scenario for stretching a charge.

The practical value of a single-charge trip goes beyond convenience. For drivers new to EVs, a successful one-charge trip is proof that electric travel can be routine. That confidence carries over. Someone who has trusted the range math on a day trip across the state will find a longer journey with one planned charging stop far less intimidating. The hardest EV road trip is the first one.

Range anxiety feeds on uncertainty. The car can tell you its state of charge, but questions multiply on the road: whether the next charger is working, whether the range readings hold up as the battery drops toward empty. A single-charge trip removes those questions before they come up. You charge at home the night before, leave with a full battery, and return with the same routine as a gasoline car, minus the gas station.

Making the math work

The practical math behind a good single-charge trip starts with honesty about real-world range. The number on the window sticker is measured under ideal conditions. Highway speeds, headwinds, and hills all pull the actual number down. Add a car full of passengers, and the gap widens further. The safe approach is to plan with a generous margin, treating the advertised range as an upper bound rather than a guarantee. A round trip doubles the distance, so the destination should sit comfortably inside half of what the car can realistically do.

Minnesota roads are comparatively level across most of the state, which works in an EV's favor. Even so, sustained highway speed is where EVs lose range fastest. A trip that looks short on paper can feel different after an hour at 70 mph. Drivers planning a one-charge trip should also account for what they carry: a trunk packed with camping gear and a roof rack both cut into efficiency. So does a heavy foot on the accelerator.

There is a side benefit to the single-charge approach: it bypasses the least enjoyable part of EV ownership, the public charging experience. The major networks have expanded in recent years, but using them still means juggling accounts, apps, and the occasional out-of-service station. A trip that requires none of that is the most reliable kind of road trip an EV owner can take.

The bigger point for EV owners

The specific destinations behind Herod's advice were not disclosed. The durable takeaway does not depend on the town names. It depends on the method: choose a destination you can reach and return from on a single charge, do the math with a comfortable margin, and treat the trip as a test of what your car will do on a normal day.

For Minnesota drivers planning a summer of cabin weekends and lake trips, the single-charge trip is the right place to start with an EV. It matches the state's actual driving patterns, which tend toward medium-distance trips rather than cross-country hauls. Herod's advice reframes the question from how far the car can go to which destinations fit the range you have. That second question is the more useful one, and it is one any EV owner can answer without a charging map in hand.

The broader takeaway applies well beyond Minnesota. Automakers keep pushing battery sizes upward, but most daily driving and much of the vacation driving in this country is short enough to fit inside a single charge. The best EV trips are the ones that work without drama, and a route that starts and ends with a full battery at home fits that description.