If these new batteries can give 4X then it can win that too.
I wonder if all these people who want to do and really do do these very long weekend rides do so out of habit.
I've never done it. It seems like it could be fun but my little 1-2 hour rides on my back roads are so relaxing I wonder if ICE riders can even imagine how nice that is. I feel like they need to invest a whole day to riding 5-6 hundred miles to justify having the bike.
I don't know why but it seems to be a recurring demand from riders that makes it a deal breaker for them if they can't ride like they do their
old bikes. As you get older a nice hassle free shorter ride is more realistic than a 1000 mile endurance test.
Maybe it can do all things well soon enough but I wish people would challenge their norms and enjoy the better smoother ride as a good trade off for weekend touring.
I'm scratching my head here.
Most people in developed countries live in metro areas (that is, either dense cities or suburbs close to them); there are no rideable backroads near to where I live. The nearest fun roads without very heavy traffic are ~80-100mi of what we call here "administrative" riding (each way), and that's the case for pretty much everyone in my country and most of the population in many others.
My ideal day ride on a weekend would be ~200-250 miles of twisties & sweepers; since I like to combine rides with visiting historical or other sites of interest, the ideal day trip would be ~8 hours, only 4-5 of which would be actual riding.
However, there's no choice but to add ~3 hours & 200mi of admin riding to that, making it a long day overall. That requires decent AER as well as decent charging rates.