Supercharger capacity

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

They will continue to build out the network. There has been the occasional debate over whether to fill out the empty areas first or further fill out areas that already have superchargers but have high demand.

If I might throw in my quick biased reasoning for filling out the empty areas first (at least in the USA):

1) Temper the divide between the coasts and the heartland. The heartland has grievances with the coasts -- example: refering to the heartland as the "fly over" states. Filling in the coasts further when there is no coverage in the heartland will strengthen the subtle resentment and make heartland adoption of EVs even harder to achieve.

2) Avoid chicken and egg problem. For the support that does exist in the heartland, many will want to see service center and supercharger coverage in the region before buying in, myself included.

3) Avoid compliance car syndrome. A frequent heartland dig against all things green is that the green only exists in California and a few other coastal states, and isn't a "real" thing. If Tesla focuses on the coasts, even if that is where the demand is, they fall into the compliance car trap. This is a thing; I myself was influenced in waiting longer to make a Tesla my next car instead of going with the Volt for a few more years when it was announced that the 2016 Volt is not a real car...er, I mean, has rollout limited to select states until 2017.

4) Coasters need heartland superchargers too. Last but not least, if the coasters decide to take trips in the east/west direction instead of north/south, they will be delighted to already have superchargers in place for such trips.

In my opinion, Tesla is already building out coverage ahead of sales. It's necessary because of the chicken and egg, but they do have budgetary limitations. Following Tesla's build-out, they seem to be prioritizing major routes for major markets, but with an eye on making sure they build complete routes. The obvious caveat is that some things don't go as well as they hope.

The implication to me is that people will be tapping impatiently and then see some routes go from nothing to covered relatively rapidly.
But some locations will be a challenge for Tesla because there are some obvious Interstate intersections where there are no good sites close.

I live in a state with Vacationland on its license plate that has a high percentage of vacation homes, but has no Superchargers at all. Portland, ME was almost agreed, but Tesla backed out and I think that's an example where the slow progress made Tesla focus on other routes.

 

[Skotty]

I should clarify, in general agreement with past replies, that I was referring to which has priority, and I think Tesla is currently prioritizing coverage over demand expansion (much to my delight). I don't think they should exclusively focus on one or the other though, more like 67/33 or something (again, what Tesla seems to be doing).

 

[jerry33]

I should clarify, in general agreement with past replies, that I was referring to which has priority, and I think Tesla is currently prioritizing coverage over demand expansion (much to my delight). I don't think they should exclusively focus on one or the other though, more like 67/33 or something (again, what Tesla seems to be doing).

Right now there are six under construction on the West Coast, four on the East Coast, and six in the centre, plus whatever expansions to existing SCs are going on. Waiting for SCs is somewhat like waiting for your car. Once the ones you're interested in get opened, you forget about the wait time.

 

[vapor trail]

Saw this over on Tesla Motors forum: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/s...nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0