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Tesla Supercharger network

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I will agree with that when we see some evidence of plans to build the network from Austin and Houston to south Texas, or I-20, or a reasonable spacing on I-10 for 60s and 70s (Slidell and east side of Houston). Not just dots on a 2015 map.

And when we see the same spacing on I-95 on the east coast as well as I-81 filled in as they said they would. And more than 1 cross country route for 60s and 70s. Best laid plans for this year simply never happened. And not only did they not happen they didn't even come close to them.
 
And until we get infrastructure we will not drive EVs. So I guess that means we never will at least not anywhere in the short term. Sad commentary (not your but in general).

And I know this issue comes up all the time. I have been around here a long time too. I have been firmly in the camp of - look what will be coming to us soon - but I am rapidly moving to the - hey what about us over here now camp.

California accounts for about 30-40% of all EV sales in the US. Having 14% of all Superchargers in California shows that Tesla does not favor the state. If anything the demand here is higher than the number of Superchargers serve. Tesla has built many Superchargers in places that have very little traffic just to create a connected network. I think they are doing a great job of balancing demand in certain areas and also providing a network in places where there is almost no demand just to have a continuous network.
 
California accounts for about 30-40% of all EV sales in the US. Having 14% of all Superchargers in California shows that Tesla does not favor the state. If anything the demand here is higher than the number of Superchargers serve. Tesla has built many Superchargers in places that have very little traffic just to create a connected network. I think they are doing a great job of balancing demand in certain areas and also providing a network in places where there is almost no demand just to have a continuous network.

So the whole world starts in CA and if we feel like traveling to one of those other states we will add a few chargers to barely get us there. Right ?

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I live close to Washington, DC which does not seem like a small city to me and most of the rest of the world but I have 5 superchargers within 100 miles and most of the rest of the east coast is way worse off than I am. There seems to be a relatively large portion of Model S owners here as I see them all the time. Can I get to NC no. WV no. PA no. Those are not even major road trips.
 
More East-West intercontinental routes need to be opened, a charging station in Paducah KY would go a long way helping to fill in a gap between St. Louis and Nashville. In addition there are gaps on I-10 west of Mobile AL and filling in I-40 from nashville via memphis to OKC should be a priority. a SC near Jacksonville FL would eliminate a long stretch on I95.
these are my suggestions I am sure others feel as strong about the needs for SCs in their parts of the world.
 
So the whole world starts in CA and if we feel like traveling to one of those other states we will add a few chargers to barely get us there. Right ?

I don't understand all the negativity about the California chargers.

I am pretty critical of Tesla in some areas. I live in a part of the country where, like you, there just are not enough Superchargers to make long distance travel easily possible, especially in the winter. So I, like you, want to see the network built out.

But I also believe what the posters here who have first-hand experience in California have been saying about the utilization of the Superchargers in California. It really does sound like Tesla has found the right mix here, between adding capacity where it is needed, and building out the network.

There are many areas in which I think Tesla could do a lot better. In my opinion, this probably is not one of them.
 
So the whole world starts in CA and if we feel like traveling to one of those other states we will add a few chargers to barely get us there. Right ?

I don't live in California either, but I would argue that resolving congestion is much more important than enabling new routes.

If a route isn't served by Superchargers, you can plan appropriately (in extremis, saying "I won't buy a Tesla until next year"). If Superchargers get a reputation for being congested, then you can't go anywhere, and start saying "These Teslas are useless".

So it's a strong imperative for Tesla - sales postponed in non-Supercharger areas are better than sales lost forever due to bad congestion experiences. Even for us as drivers, I would rather have a smaller number of routes that I know I can use reliably, rather than lots of routes that can't be trusted.
 
I don't understand all the negativity about the California chargers.

I am pretty critical of Tesla in some areas. I live in a part of the country where, like you, there just are not enough Superchargers to make long distance travel easily possible, especially in the winter. So I, like you, want to see the network built out.

But I also believe what the posters here who have first-hand experience in California have been saying about the utilization of the Superchargers in California. It really does sound like Tesla has found the right mix here, between adding capacity where it is needed, and building out the network.

There are many areas in which I think Tesla could do a lot better. In my opinion, this probably is not one of them.

I am just tired of CA complaining that they do not have enough when we don't have ANY. That's all. All I ask is to spread the love to more people. My approach would be to fill in the big picture and then add pixels later to make it clearer. Not the current put 1 clear piece in and leave the rest of the puzzle for later.

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It really is not either/or; Tesla is building to take care of capacity in California and expanding the network elsewhere. If you look at Supercharge.Info, 4 of the 16 Supercharger Sites under construction in the U.S. are in California in areas that need capacity. Most of the other 12 are expanding network coverage elsewhere.

Expanding the Supercharger network to other regions of the country is important to the spread of Telsas, but avoiding the PR nightmare of regular queues at Superchargers in California and other high use areas, is VERY important.

In my opinion,Tesla seems to be striking a reasonable balance between maintaining capacity in busy areas and expanding the network to new regions.

Yes those numbers are correct but they don't show the bigger picture. Of the 24 in permit or construction in the US 10 are in CA. Almost half.
 
Just sayin': still awaiting anything east of Calgary and west of (approx) Toronto, on the Trans-Canada. On the chicken-egg aspect, although I've heard the excuse "well, when they build them I'll buy one", I'm not so sure a ton of people would follow suit. Admittedly TC1 is well served by Sun Country, albeit about 8-10 times slower charging (3-4 hours vs 15-30 minutes), but Sun Country does deserve credit. It's superchargers that will really open things up.
 
Says the person with 12 superchargers within 100 miles.

The difference is that I'm not claiming that "we don't have any".

My larger point is that Superchargers are supposed to be for LONG DISTANCE travel not local travel. If that is the case build them according to that plan.

I think we'd all like to see more superchargers. Tesla is building them at a rapid pace, just not fast enough for many of us. Almost all the stand-alone superchargers being built now are obviously to facilitate long distance travel. There are a couple being built at service centers which to me seem to be just targets of opportunity.

Right now it looks to me like the most supercharged state in terms of density is Florida, and I think that qualifies as East Coast.
 
The difference is that I'm not claiming that "we don't have any".



I think we'd all like to see more superchargers. Tesla is building them at a rapid pace, just not fast enough for many of us. Almost all the stand-alone superchargers being built now are obviously to facilitate long distance travel. There are a couple being built at service centers which to me seem to be just targets of opportunity.

Right now it looks to me like the most supercharged state in terms of density is Florida, and I think that qualifies as East Coast.

Actually you are wrong there too.

CA has 163,700 sq mi and 34 chargers. 1: 4814 sq mi
FL has 65,700 sq mi and 11 superchargers. 1:5977 sq mi.

Here in VA we are 1:11,697 and there are in fact about 5-6 states that actually have none !! EDIT: there are actually 7 states that have none.
 
OK, I see what the intent of the charts are. I suspect that Tesla purchase rate/population is a better indicator however (as has been alluded to).

Admittedly, it's a bit of a chicken & egg problem, in that lack of supercharger infrastructure my stunt vehicle purchases... but I'd suspect that the adoption rate in a given state will likely be a better barometer.

Agreed! If anybody can point me to or give me reliable sales data by state, I would love to incorporate it.

I am just tired of CA complaining that they do not have enough when we don't have ANY. That's all. All I ask is to spread the love to more people.

I haven't noticed many California residents complaining that they don't have enough locations. Some have complained of congestion though, which implies they need more stalls at existing locations (or more locations to spread out the load).
 
Just sayin': still awaiting anything east of Calgary and west of (approx) Toronto, on the Trans-Canada. On the chicken-egg aspect, although I've heard the excuse "well, when they build them I'll buy one", I'm not so sure a ton of people would follow suit. Admittedly TC1 is well served by Sun Country, albeit about 8-10 times slower charging (3-4 hours vs 15-30 minutes), but Sun Country does deserve credit. It's superchargers that will really open things up.

From Supercharge.info and http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger, you can see that they are starting to connect the route to Winnipeg via MN and ND (but still a ways to go, obviously). Unfortunately no sign of any Superchargers planned on the TC1 between Calgary and Toronto. :frown:
 
From Supercharge.info and http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger, you can see that they are starting to connect the route to Winnipeg via MN and ND (but still a ways to go, obviously). Unfortunately no sign of any Superchargers planned on the TC1 between Calgary and Toronto. :frown:

The superchargers under construction in Minnesota are not on the route one would normally take to get to Winnipeg (I-94 to I-29 to highway 75 in Manitoba). Instead, they are for Twin Cities residents to get to their cabins on lakes in northern Minnesota. Tesla's 2016 map links Winnipeg to the U.S. network, although Canadians have reason to be particularly skeptical of Tesla timelines.
 
The superchargers under construction in Minnesota are not on the route one would normally take to get to Winnipeg (I-94 to I-29 to highway 75 in Manitoba). Instead, they are for Twin Cities residents to get to their cabins on lakes in northern Minnesota. Tesla's 2016 map links Winnipeg to the U.S. network, although Canadians have reason to be particularly skeptical of Tesla timelines.

Ah good point. Looking closer at http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger, I can see they'll have them along I-94 so driver's won't have to take a detour off I-94 through Brainerd. It would be nice if we could zoom in Tesla's map!
 
What all these charts tell me is that CA is WAY OVER SATURATED and yet they continue to concentrate their efforts there. This just pisses me off. How about the rest of the d@@@ country already. At the beginning of the year they made it look like the east coast was going to get some love this year and so far nada !!

You say California is oversaturated, and yet essentially ALL of the complaints about having to wait at superchargers come from CA, particularly the LA area. I went to the newly opened Fountain Valley a few weeks ago and took the last spot, just before two more cars showed up. If you want more superchargers, buy or sell more Teslas! I think they're doing an OK job trying to balance the two opposing requirements.
 
Ah good point. Looking closer at http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger, I can see they'll have them along I-94 so driver's won't have to take a detour off I-94 through Brainerd. It would be nice if we could zoom in Tesla's map!

click and zoom with browser or download and zoom with editing software.

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/de...rcharger/maps/today-northamerica.jpg?20151005 First one is Today/Coming soon

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/de...ercharger/maps/2015-northamerica.jpg?20151005 (labeled late 2015, I'd call this the first half 2016)

http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/de...ercharger/maps/2016-northamerica.jpg?20151005 (labeled 2016, I'd call this second half 2016)
 
You say California is oversaturated, and yet essentially ALL of the complaints about having to wait at superchargers come from CA, particularly the LA area. I went to the newly opened Fountain Valley a few weeks ago and took the last spot, just before two more cars showed up. If you want more superchargers, buy or sell more Teslas! I think they're doing an OK job trying to balance the two opposing requirements.
That's because they're full of owners who should be charging at home. In the rest of the country the superchargers are usually in the middle of nowhere (or at least not near a cluster of Tesla owners) and they're just used by people traveling.
 
Actually you are wrong there too.

I can't be wrong there too as I haven't been wrong about anything else. And, as I explain below I'm not wrong about this either. You are just choosing to use "density" in a way that wasn't intended and makes no sense in context.

And, by the way, I have eight superchargers within 100 miles of me, not twelve. Not that I'm complaining. But your arguments would hold more weight if you got your numbers right. And speaking of numbers...

CA has 163,700 sq mi and 34 chargers. 1: 4814 sq mi
FL has 65,700 sq mi and 11 superchargers. 1:5977 sq mi.

Where do you get these numbers? Florida has 13 superchargers, with another one likely to open next week. And seriously, you're looking at total area? Water area and unconnected islands just don't matter. In fact land area doesn't matter. What you care about is linear density of superchargers along roads. So the fact that your numbers are all wrong doesn't matter all that much because your calculation isn't useful anyway. For example, for Alaska you don't need many superchargers to cover the whole state as it just doesn't have all that many roads despite its huge area.

And linear density isn't enough either, although it's a fair approximation. What you want is to have a supercharger in range wherever you might be in your car, so you care that they are well dispersed too. Right now, wherever you might be (in a Tesla) in Florida and wherever you want to go there's a reasonable way to use superchargers to get there. At least it looks that way to me. Linear density along highways is good and useful dispersion has been achieved.

This is not the case in California. For example, the drive from Santa Rosa to Crescent City (I use this example because it's a drive I would like to do but can't) is over 300 miles with no superchargers anywhere near the route. Lake Tahoe to Mammoth Lakes can't be done (this should be fixed by ski season). The whole part of the state north of Sacramento is ill-served, except directly on I-5. You can, if you choose the right starting point, get to Yosemite. But you aren't getting home, at least not by superchargers.

So yeah, pretty much everywhere could use more superchargers, even Florida. And it will just become more true when we have Model 3 Teslas everywhere. Tesla has quite a buildout in progress. My feeling is that they are using Florida and California (and Germany) to test charging dynamics and driver behavior for relatively dense supercharger provisioning. In many other places they are testing how it works when superchargers are placed only along major travel routes. As the network matures they'll work out the best way to do things. And there will be lots more Teslas on the road, and there will be lots more superchargers.

And people will still be complaining.