Can anyone here explain the rationale of placing the charger 20 min off the 75/40 split towards NC? Getting to NC from north take an extra 30/40 min just to drive to the charger. Seems like a placement a few miles further east still could have met the needs.
West Town Mall has a traffic/parking problem as it is. Anything downtown is a traffic problem/parking problem as well. It's likely they picked the spot they did knowing a second location would come later in 2017 or 2018.
The only way to really fix it is to have multiple locations so that there is something for all the possible major through routes. Unfortunately to fully cover the possibilities it'd take 3 not 2.
As is South and West travel out of Knoxville are covered with the one they chose. Travel North isn't covered as such and Travel east is covered even less.
Given the existing supercharger in Knoxville I'd place priority for the second location to be east at one of I-40 exit 398 (Strawberry Plains pike), exit 407 (near Kodak), or exit 417 (Dandridge / hwy 92) these locations serve I-81 Northeast, I-40 east, and traffic into Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg south of I-40.
Then if, and only if, a third is desired I'd place it North at I-75 exit 128/129 (Lake City) which serves the traffic into and out of Kentucky and just one stop north of the dropoff in local population density (to reduce locals abusing it). Now with idle fees an option I'd consider exit 122 (Clinton) as another viable option.
I-75 exit 112 has way better amenities than the two more northern choices but its chock full of residential traffic as well (in the income bracket to likely have a Tesla) so any locals would be charging there daily. I'd fear that even with idle fees any supercharger put here would be over capacity the day it goes live.
TLDR; the further west they put the first one the better assuming another one is put east of downtown Knoxville.
