Car and Driver finally ran the test the rest of us argue about at trailheads: an EV, a hybrid, and a gas car, all three on the same 750-plus-mile road trip, to see which one actually works when you're just trying to get somewhere far away. You can read the whole comparison here. I'm not going to tell you who won, because the piece deserves the click and I'm not putting words in their mouth. What I can tell you is how I'd think about the question.

If you've been around this site for a bit, you know I have a horse in this race. I wrote up a 2,350-mile EV run from Detroit to New Orleans a couple weeks back, and that trip taught me more about charging infrastructure than any spec sheet ever did. So a three-way comparison like this is basically my idea of a good read.

My bias going in: for pure logistics on long empty stretches, I still default to gas or hybrid. Not gospel, just me. I once spent forty minutes of a Montana evening watching a Level 2 charger crawl like it was being paid by the hour, and that experience shaped me. Whether that's an EV problem or an infrastructure problem depends on the charger, but from the driver's seat they can feel the same. I know other long-distance reports have shown total travel time coming out roughly even between EV and gas, so my sample of one isn't the last word.

On paper, the hybrid is the quiet overachiever of the group, though that's my read, not the magazine's. Gas-car refueling with better mileage, which matters on a multi-day trip when fuel costs stack up, and you never once open a charging app to check whether a plug in rural Wyoming is actually working today. If you road trip a lot but aren't ready to commit to charging math, a hybrid is a boringly reasonable answer.

And the EV? Charging stops impose a rhythm on you that I've come around to liking. You stop, you stretch, you eat actual food instead of gas station crackers at 75 miles an hour. Feature or bug depends entirely on your temperament and how badly your passengers need bathroom breaks anyway. Again, my experience talking, not a finding from their test.

The thing is, the answer changes with the route. A trip up the Northeast Corridor or along I-70 in Colorado is a different animal from crossing the Nebraska Sandhills or running remote desert two-lanes out West. Charger density, terrain, cold weather, how fast the car charges, whether you're towing, all of it moves the needle. No universal winner. Just the right tool for the route you're actually driving.

My read after putting real miles on a couple of these flavors: if your road trip is the destination, take whatever you love driving. If the road trip is just transportation to a trailhead 800 miles away and you want to start hiking the same day, take whatever gets you there with the least stress and don't overthink it.

Now go plan something. September's the best driving month of the year and the aspens don't wait.