What it's like to drive Route 66 in an EV

As Route 66 turns 100, a growing charger network is making the Mother Road drivable by EV. But does the classic American road trip still feel the same without petrol?

On a rainy Chicago morning, my friends and I stared down one of the world's most mythologised roads: Route 66. We were about to join the legions of dreamers who've driven this 2,500-mile ribbon of highway – a vehicular timeline stretching from the Ford Model T to the Honda Civic. But unlike our petrol-guzzling predecessors, we would tackle the Mother Road in an electric car.

When the highway opened in 1926, such a journey would have been unthinkable. But over the past decade, Route 66 has welcomed a string of EV charge points along the route that now, just in time for its 100th birthday, reach all the way to its endpoint of Santa Monica.

We calculated that travelling by e-car would save between 150 and 180g of CO2 per kilometre, and the soaring cost of petrol made our decision a no-brainer. But how would an electric journey compare to the traditional experience?

We'd soon find out. My friend pressed his e-car's start button, and we were off to take our place in Route 66 history.

The first miles of an American myth

Since I was visiting from London we had just three days to sample a route that generally takes weeks. We would cover roughly 300 miles from Chicago through Illinois to St Louis, following the opening stretch of the old highway, eating at roadside diners, soaking up the centennial buzz and chasing freedom – all while trying not to run out of battery.

Route 66 goes electric

The route's electric revolution has been brewing since the mid-2010s when the first EV chargers appeared along the eastern portion of the road and solar roadway panels were erected. In 2024, the US Senate called for infrastructure expansions so that the route was fully drivable by e-car by the route's 100th birthday, inspiring a flurry of new charge points. Though gaps in the network still exist, notably in rural areas, an electric version of the iconic road trip is easier than ever.

It wasn't a route marker that announced our arrival in the city of Wilmington. It was the first roadside icon of our trip: the Gemini Giant, an 8.5m-tall fibreglass astronaut in a green jumpsuit, holding a silver rocket in both hands. 

First erected in 1965 outside the Launching Pad restaurant, he is one of Route 66's famous "muffler men" – giant figures once used to lure motorists off the road and into diners, garages and gift shops. Sparkling from a recent restoration, he now stands at Wilmington's South Island Park as a reminder of the US's role in the Space Race, when Route 66 served as the country's "Cosmic Highway". Could those cosmonauts ever have imagined that one day travellers would travel the highway in cars that plugged into a socket, I wondered?

While previous generations travelled with the constant fear of running out of petrol along the way, our car's electric battery has the capacity to carry us up to 300 miles on a single charge. Drivers of petrol cars will readily find petrol stations, so an electric-powered journey requires forethought, and can result in a slower pace. But this allows you to pick up on little details – throughout our trip, we found ourselves veering off our carefully mapped route to follow a sign to a quirky café, or pause in front of a kitsch road........

© BBC