Walled garden charging infrastructure is good for nobody. End of story. The sooner it’s eliminated the better off everyone will be.
Clutching our pearls and worrying about all the poors in their Bolts overrunning “our” chargers is an emotional overreaction.
Finally, using Jalopnik as a serious source when it comes to EV infrastructure commentary is indeed a joke.
The scenario that article documents was a literal perfect storm. A big Thanksgiving storm closed down mountain passes on interstate 5, the primary north-west travel corridor in California, on the busiest travel days of the year. This forced everyone West to US 101, a much less traveled route, with predictable results. It was the EV charging equivalent of a hundred year flood. I wonder why they didn’t mention that?
Since that event in 2019, Tesla has installed EIGHTY FOUR additional supercharging pedestals within 30 miles of San Luis Obispo, with another 20 currently under construction.
I am sorry that you are not so well informed on the topic, but you are more than welcome to speculate, guess, pontificate and be comical if you wish. While you do, we will look at some facts related to the matter.
Beginning of Story
It's important to note that early adopters and even current adopters paid for and continue to pay for the development of that worldwide supercharger network. A portion of each car price went into developing the Tesla Supercharger network. Calculating supercharger costs yields a figure between $500 and $1660 per car. I didn't notice any GM, Audi, BMW, VW, Ford or Nissan making any contributions. And now they want to suck off the benefits of someone else's investment. Perhaps opening the network to non-Tesla owners at a significant premium, would be a fair way to compensate Tesla owners for their investment. Being an early adopter and having owned seven Tesla's, I don't appreciate funding and rewarding other auto manufacturers for their resistance to change and for literally being asleep at the wheel. It's like that COVID denier, wanting to go to the front of the line for a vaccination.
Tesla Is Slowly Admitting Supercharging Costs Thousands Of Dollars Per Car (NASDAQ:TSLA).
It may seem like superchargers are popping up everywhere, but have you NOT noticed beaucoup more Teslas on the road everywhere? Before speculating, one might want to re-visit the math on the charger to vehicle ratio. It's very simple math, actually. First, let's look at the growth rate of superchargers. Most accounts describe an overall growth rate of 35% over time. But realizing that last year was an exceptional year, with some reports of 50% worldwide growth; so give it the benefit of the doubt.
This map sums up the math. Pretty simple.
Supercharger access is like one of the legs of a Tesla table — it’s critical. So, how much the Supercharger network grows is important to many people,
and it also increasingly attracts new buyers who see the stark difference between what Tesla has built and what others have "NOT" built — especially people who see Superchargers pop up near them or along some of their favorite travel routes.
As the supercharger wait increases, the critical advantage disappears. Bean counters only look at idle chargers ($$$) and are only concerned about company profit. They aren't the ones waiting at the chargers
An important factor that has been overlooked. Giga Tesla alone will be producing 1,000,000 vehicles a year by 2023. The total US Tesla vehicles produced are conservatively projected to be 2.441,799 (a 62.5% increase) and remember FREMONT and AUSTIN vehicles will for the most part stay in the United States, as the rest of the world is now supported by SHANGHAI and BERLIN. This will dramatically increase the number of vehicles using superchargers in the US.
Increasing Tesla Superchargers by the classic 35% a yearv or even 50% a year is not going to come close to supporting the number of Tesla's on the road, let alone adding non-Tesla vehicles.
"More EV's on the road is a good thing, not a bad thing. Tesla can and will build out the network to match the number of cars sold."
Of course, more EVs on the road is a good thing, but not without the infrastructure to support it. Would having more EVs on the road in the Sahara be a good thing? And if you think Tesla has it covered, let me tell you about the CYBRTRK in my driveway, which has been fully autonomous since 2018. The Semi, the Roadster, the Compact.....don't even go there. Don't be that naive.
And don't count on the government to cover it. The U.S. government owns about 1,100 charging stations. It may need
more than 100,000 charging stations to support widespread EV use in the next decade, according to testimony from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday.
The US government has just 1% of the EV chargers it needs
And don't forget about the condo and apartment dwellers who all want a new Tesla. Did you read the post about three people constantly fighting for one slow charger? Then driving 30 minutes to get to a supercharger in the opposite direction of his work. Geez.
I apologize for the lengthy response, but sometimes facts are just that way.
Sometimes facts can be brutal. But it's what you have left when you strip out the emotion, the speculation, and the comics.
And the truth has already arrived.
Out of Spec Reviews' Kyle Conner wanted to charge a Tesla Model X at a Supercharger station in Las Vegas before a road trip; it took longer than he expected.
insideevs.com
A sign of the times.
Tesla has been showing the number of stalls currently available on the Nav screen for a few years. Now, if a Supercharger is full, drivers are shown a grey clock icon on the pin. When you touch the pin it will display short, medium or long wait for that location.
Perhaps repairing those chargers out of service would help.
Tesla Supercharger stations throughout the West Coast were overwhelmed over the holiday, and some drivers complained on Twitter and YouTube.
www.businessinsider.com
Strain
Plan your travel during off-peak hours.
Holiday travelers get free Tesla charging in some areas.
www.theverge.com
Wishing you happy and uneventful charging. Please avoid the fights that have broken out when someone attempts to skip the line.
Of course, for those problem deniers, this is always this option.