A 120V outlet trickle charging 3-4 miles per hour in the winter isn't going to get you home. The 240V outlet isn't going to help either, because people aren't going to jump through hoops to justify a car that doesn't make the drives they need to make. If there's no charger network where they live, and they need that range, then they're not going to replace their car with the EV. If it's there, then Tesla's stations probably aren't the only ones available, because Tesla's network is relatively small, so it's not a huge problem for Chevy.
Yes, you can come up with a trip where this doesn't work. If you're going 120 miles and there isn't a Supercharger on the way and it's cold as hell outside and there's no easily accessible 240V outlet and you're not staying long enough for 120V to get the job done and you're not going out during your visit then, yes, you're going to have trouble.
But we were talking about "most people," not "a tiny tiny proportion of the population that just happens to have the worst case scenario."
If I purchase a vehicle, I'm likely to want it to work for every trip I want to take. It needs to work when I visit my brother in Oklahoma in the winter, and my friend's LAN party in Louisiana in the summer, and my in-laws in Oregon in the fall, and when I pick friends up from the airport (a 45-mile round trip) a few times a year, and on days when I have a bunch of scattered errands all across town.
If a car sucks for even one of those trips, I'm going to be hesitant to buy it, and if there are two or three circumstances where it would suck, I'm crossing it off of my list. If I can come up with one trip where I'm going to need to sit there for two hours waiting for my car to charge, then the supercharger network, while not being actually useless on the whole, is not particularly convenient for me and therefore not really a strong selling point.
You sound like some of my neighbors who drive great big huge pickup trucks because they need something that can carry a full sheet of plywood, which they do once or twice a year. They spend thousands in extra gasoline and depreciation to save $50 in delivery charges.
If I have to put up with slow charging (and therefore perhaps take an extra vacation day), or have to rent a car or fly, for 2-3 trips, that's thousands of dollars every year, not a $50 delivery charge. If I have to seriously inconvenience my grandparents every time I go to visit them, that generates a lot of stress and potentially puts them at risk (grandpa is turning 95 this year; he doesn't travel well.)
But I can buy a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt for a couple grand less than the cheap Tesla (counting the same tax incentives), and it works for every trip. With the gas generator, it has a range of over 300 miles, and can refill about 280-290 miles of range at an ordinary gas station in 5 minutes. So I can spend a similar amount of money for a much more convenient experience by going with a hybrid and ignoring the superchargers entirely.
Point being, the argument that the supercharger network covers "almost everyone" is flawed. There are a lot of people for whom it still misses at least some of their trips, where other types of EVs perform better, and missing some trips is far more relevant than you seem to give it credit for.
Again, it's not like spending $thousands to avoid the occasional $50 delivery charge for plywood. It's spending basically the same amount on a different type of technology to avoid the occasional flight, car rental, or extra stress on the grandparents. The supercharger network will need to be much more dense before it gets to the point of being a major factor in Tesla's favor.
I totally agree. It has to work for everything you want, not just almost everything.
That's exactly why the Supercharger network is such a big deal. Its existence moves a huge segment of the population from "almost everything" to "everything."
Yes, there's still a group of people where it doesn't do that. I totally accept that. But the person I'm replying to thinks that the Supercharger network doesn't matter outside of California because it's "so sparse as to be useless for most people." Which is far, far from the truth.
I think you're very wrong about the size of group of people that the Supercharger network doesn't move from "almost everything" to "everything".
The network matters, but it's only a strong selling point for those it moves from "almost" to "everything", and I think that's actually a fairly small segment of the population.
The vast majority of the population lives in areas with good Supercharger coverage, and uses major interstates for their long trips, which is where Superchargers are mostly located. I would contend that a majority of the US population's trips would fit within it as the network stands today. Again, just look at the population map of the US and the map of superchargers. It lines up pretty well.
I live in a major metro area and use major interstates for most of my long trips. But the network is still a long way from where it would need to be to support all of my trips.
Here's an example that I've actually done twice in the last two years: Denver, CO to Austin, TX. That's about a 900 mile trip, and a long but tolerable day -- from Denver south to Raton, NM and then southeast through Amarillo, south to Lubbock, and then southeast again. To stay on the supercharger network I'd have to go all the way over to Oklahoma City (on either I-40 or I-70 to I-35), adding 150+ miles to the trip, not to mention longer and more frequent stops that would likely necessitate adding an extra half-day of travel time each way.
My brother lives in Chicago. His trips to Indianapolis would be covered, but not his trips to Denver.
Dallas-Fort Worth is a huge population center, with great supercharger coverage leaving north or south, but not east or west. If you're heading to Atlanta, Memphis, or St. Louis the supercharger network is going to be really inconvenient.
And while the majority of the US population does live in major cities connected by interstates, the majority of the US population has at least one close friend or family member they'd like to visit, who isn't connected by one of the supercharger-served routes. If you made graphs not just of population centers, but of close personal connections, your "graph of graphs" would have quite a few connections that aren't covered by the network. (While truck traffic and passenger traffic are not identical, figure 2.8 of https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/bottlenecks/chap2.cfm suggests quite a few heavily-trafficked routes that aren't covered by the supercharger network.)
It's not my intent to be overly negative. I'm just being realistic, presenting the analysis I did myself about 6 months ago after my old car got wrecked in a hit-and-run. The majority of the time, I'd be happy with a Tesla and the supercharger network, but a couple times a year it would be a massive inconvenience. This is an area where the difference between 95% and 100% is huge. Tesla/superchargers are getting there, but it'll be several years before the infrastructure is in place for a pure electric plugin with a 200 mile range becomes a truly viable vehicle for the majority of people.
"the majority of the US population has at least one close friend or family member they'd like to visit, who isn't connected by one of the supercharger-served routes."
What's the basis for this statement? I mean, sure, if you live in a poorly covered area like Texas, or in an area that has good coverage but is near the edge like Chicago, you're likely to have places to go that aren't covered. But that's not where most people live.
Freight and car traffic are so different that I really see no point in even bringing up that map.
Note that I'm not in any way disbelieving your personal situation. If you live in Dallas and you ever go anywhere that isn't north or south then clearly the network is not suitable for you. I'm not trying to argue otherwise. I'm just arguing that most of the country isn't like Texas.
I know people who live all over the country. I see their vacation photos on facebook. And even those who live in pretty well-served areas (like NYC or Boston) don't make 100% of their out-of-town trips along the covered interstates -- sometimes they go visit a cousin in Cleveland, and NYC to Cleveland via I-80 isn't covered by the network. Even NYC to Buffalo is questionably covered.
> "that's not where most people live"
The Metro Statistical Areas of NYC, LA, DC, Philly, Miami, and Boston account for about 56 million people combined. Dallas, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta are poorly covered and account for 29m. Of the next 10 MSAs on the list (populations in the 3m-4m range), 5 of them are pretty well covered in all directions and 5 have significant gaps. If you account for the whole top 50 MSAs, I only see another 6 that are well-covered along all major travel routes -- bringing the total population in those well-covered areas to around 85m. The US population is around 320m total.
My contention is that the majority of the US population lives in areas that are not well covered, and that even those who live in well-covered areas will on average have at least one trip they'd like to take that isn't served by the network.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying the network "sucks" or is "useless" like a previous poster. I'm saying that it's not yet built out to the point where it's suitable for the majority of the population for 100% of trips. It's suitable for the majority of the population for 80-90% of trips, maybe, but not 100%. Those who live in well-covered cities and make all of their trips on well-covered routes are actually in a distinct minority, perhaps one that is well represented on Hacker News, but a minority nonetheless. Which means there will be some market penetration by the Model 3, and other pure-electric vehicles with a ~200 mile range and the ability to recharge quickly, but we're still several years away from the transition from "this is a good solution for some people" to "this is a good solution for almost everyone". Right now, plug-in hybrids are a viable solution for a much larger slice of the population.
I live in the Northeastern US and that situation would be 70% of my out of town trips, and I take a real lot of out of town trips. I don't think I'm very atypical, but maybe I am?
I think the point is most people don't want to plan all of their activities around the needs of their car.
My point is that most people's activities will fit fine within an EV's capabilities as-is, without having to think about it.
I understand that there are people where this is not the case, and that some of the people commenting on this thread are in that group. I just don't think that it's the common case anymore.
And what's the big deal with that? Oh dear, unplugging an appliance.
Compare to: "I'm sorry Jane, would you mind terribly if I place a tank full of volatile and carcinogenic liquid next to your house?"
Gas cars have their own problems, we're just used to them by now. EVs aren't perfect, and there are many legitimate scenarios where they aren't (yet) practical, but their problems get exaggerated beyond belief.
I do almsot this exact route(296mi roundtrip) about once a week.
Only reason at all I bought a Tesla is there's a Supercharger about 60mi from my house on that route. I can do the trip in good weather without the Supercharger. However with cold it becomes necessary.
Other fast charging? Forget about it. All the CHAdeMO along the route(there is only two) are 40kw which would take me 3x longer to charge. Also the tend to be non-functional regualrly and only have 1-2 slots vs 8 for the Supercharger.
The reason I started the parent thread is exactly this, once you own an EV with 120kw charging it changes everything for long trips.
