Earlier this week, Tesla Motors – the country’s premiere electric car company – launched what it dubbed a supercharge rally, a cross-country journey involving two of the company’s flagship Model S sedans and with a goal of completing a trek from Los Angeles to New York City in a matter of three days or so. Despite rough weather, Tesla more or less made good on all of its goals. According to CNET, the two cars completed the cross-country journey in just about 76 hours, a time that was slowed slightly by an ice storm and a lengthy detour in Colorado and by another spot of treacherous winter weather in Wisconsin and Illinois.

The goal of the Tesla rally was threefold. First of all, the electric car company wanted to prove to doubters that electric vehicles had the range to make a marathon road trip. Secondly, Tesla wanted to test the viability of its recently established “Supercharger” network, a route of battery charging stations that the company claims “spans more than 3,400 miles.” Finally, Tesla wanted to score a Guinness World Record of lowest charge time for an electric car traveling across the country.

Whether or not Tesla Motors achieved its coveted Guinness World Record benchmark remains to be seen, but the company’s cross-country rally certainly did a lot of legwork to prove the range and viability of electric cars. 76 hours is nothing to shake a stick at as far as cross-country road trips are concerned, especially in the winter (though one daredevil driver made the trek in under 29 hours late last fall), and especially given the fact that electric charges generally take longer than traditional gas station stops. Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of Tesla Motors, said that a Model S could get about half a charge in about 20 minutes. A full charge would then give the Model S a range of about 300 miles at speeds of 55 miles per hour. Faster speeds would obviously kill the charge faster.

Those long charge times could add up quickly on a cross-country road trip, and probably cost the Model S brigade more than a few hours off of its target time. So why should the Model S be an attractive car option for drivers who want to travel far beyond the city limits? The answer comes in the form of the company’s burgeoning network of Supercharge stations, of which there are about 70 spread throughout the United States. Battery charges at the stations are free for Model S owners, representing a huge monetary savings on fuel costs. Add the benefits of clean energy, and it’s not difficult to see Tesla’s flagship sedan as the car that could break electric vehicles through to the mainstream.