T3slaOwner
Member Extraordinaire
Life, as we know it, is possible without the Tesla SC network (though building out the SC network is as good a proof of Musk's genius as I can think of).
Does his consistently failed proclamations Tesla will double the network make him a half-wit?
Musk has said that the SC network will never be a profit center for Tesla and I believe that.
Then I have some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you. Musk is literally the least reliable source of predictions related to Tesla around. I supposed we are going to see a doubling of the Supercharger network this year too?
There is the very real factor that Musk may not be running Tesla indefinitely. It seems every couple of months a new scandal shows up where Trump has done something wrong that won't set well with the SEC potentially resulting in his removal from any office with Tesla.
Finally there is the very real possibility that Tesla may not survive so many years and will be taken over which will almost certainly result in the Supercharging network being sold off.
No, given all the facts, it is not at all certain that Tesla will even have a Supercharger network much less that it will remain reasonably priced.
They say it is designed for that and it is marketed for that but the market is really clearly the weekend urban cowboy. None the less the answer to the question is "anywhere in the boonies where you can plug it in". This, of course, includes any campground that has electric service for RV's.
Which are very poor charging locations and are actually few and far between. Unless you are staying at the camping site overnight you will need to sit for HOURS doing not much else than charging. Yes, this will be a popular feature of EVs, exploring the walking area around camp grounds while waiting for your charge.
Someone posted on another forum that he'd just throw his generator and a few jerry cans in the bed and recharge with those. I laughed at first of course but then ran some numbers. If you are camping, or rather glamping, for a week and run the generator for a couple of hours each evening that's sufficient to recharge a Rivian sufficiently to get you back to a more robust charging station.
A couple of hours on even a 7.5 kW generator will get you maybe 40 miles. I guess that might do on the east coast. In a real wilderness you would still be hurting. I expect you would need to get real familiar with level 2 charging.
If Scaringe is smart (and I think the fact that he has brought the company to the point where it is today is pretty solid evidence that he is) Rivian will make some sort of subsidized charging available and will probably install some stations in popular but remote places. It as necessary for Rivian's marketing as it was for Tesla's that something like this be done.
"Some sort of subsidized charging"...? That sounds like a euphemism for a Supercharger network. Great, so he just needs another 4 billion dollars and another four years.
"Popular but remote" would be a token effort. Once you use the term "remote" you are addressing 90% of the country that Tesla has not addressed with Superchargers. Tesla (or more accurately Musk) refers to 95% of the population being within charging distance of the network, but that's largely BS because it is not a useful metric for someone to be able to charge, drive home and drive back to the charger. Turn that on it's head and I'd bet you would find 95% of the US population is too far from a Supercharger to make use of one in their routine use of an EV.
That means Rivian can't afford to populate the "remote places" with any meaningful number of Rivianchargers.