Is AWD worth if you need range?

[Humblest]

I test drove the RWD, then ordered the ER AWD. Why? I was already spending far more on a car than I had ever spent before but my wife actually told me to be good to myself. (I love that woman.) Do I NEED AWD in Southern California? Nope. Do I regret spending the extra money and taking a 10% range hit? Also nope.

I regularly drive over 200 miles round trip to see my mother. My range requirement when car shopping was to be able to do that drive without recharging and without range anxiety. No problem in the summer nor in what passes for winter here. In 16 months I have yet to charge anywhere other than my own garage, using a 40 A (9.6 KW) level 2 charger. Only headache there is that my wife has an EV with much less range so much more frequent charging; I therefore plan my charger usage around hers.

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[Reign of Ravens]

I find it hard to believe. Given that a RWD MachE is faster than 90% of the ICE vehicles, you're saying that most normal ICE vehicles like honda civics can't be driven in hawaii? Really? I rented a car in hawaii and it was nothing special and I had to stomp it now and then but I thought nothing of it.

The RWD has PLENTY of get up and go for non-competition driving. I was on 101 today and we have a lot of those big commuter busses, I had to do some hard acceleration and squeeze into some spots. No problem; point and go.

I am sure I'd have more fun had I bought an AWD. If I had numbers I believed showing AWD range is within 2% (as some claimed), I would have gone for it. The consensus was closer to 5% to 10% and I wasn't willing to pay that for a little extra fun factor.

You came here as a tourist, likely sticking to areas that are more frequented by tourists, and are telling me that you don't believe... that there's no merge points for plenty of our on-ramps? The areas I'm thinking of are largely residential with nothing for tourists, so if you never saw one, congratulations: you never got lost, or never got lost too badly.

Here's what happens at those on-ramps: people have a hard time gauging the timing of when to enter traffic (we have a lot of very elderly drivers, but to be fair to them, the on-ramps often don't give a great view of oncoming traffic either), get up to the "yield" sign that is present right before you enter the merging lane, and then stop. Flat-out stop, and wait. Cars pile up behind them. Now everyone is entering traffic from 0 MPH. Let me tell you, the number of valid openings when I had my Prius were extremely few, and I could be sitting there for minutes - and even then, it often felt like I was taking my life into my hands, really relying on the person coming up behind me to see that I was entering and slow down accordingly. Now? I don't need to wait quite as long.

Can a standard electric vehicle handle it? Sure. I mean, I never died in my Prius - I guess you can technically get away with anything. But this is one area where the 0-60 time literally matters because I'm getting up to 50 MPH (most of our highway speeds are slower compared to the mainland) from 0 MPH, in traffic that is already going that fast or faster. Not a hard requirement, but something where I am regularly making use of the feature for something more than just feeling acceleration for the fun of it.