On the road with recharging. The new electric car epic

From Washington to Tocqueville, from Steinbeck to Kerouac: an ancient genre knows a new life with the odyssey in search of the columns. Whether the new American literature will appeal to the younger generation remains to be seen

There is a new genre of literature and journalism in America. It is the modern version of the “big journey”, the adventure to discover the country which first accompanied the era of explorers and pioneers, and then that of every generation that wanted to venture out in search of the American spirit. In its latest variant, the journey has become something of an electric car odyssey, wandering from state to state in search of charging stations. Who knows what Jack Kerouac’s adventures would have been like if he had crossed America not in a spacious 1949 Hudson Commodore sedan, but in a current model powered by batteries. On the road it would have been a very different novel, probably full of stops and recharging angst like certain travel reports published by the American media. Joann Muller of Axios, for example, recounted a family trip from Michigan to Florida (2,400 kilometers) on an electric Kia EV6 with the same level of pathos and curiosity with which the search for the mythical naval passage to the North would once have been narrated West.