Their proposed "Opening Soon" map points are getting so plentiful it's almost to the point where it doesn't matter where they locate them any more, since there's so many. I combed through it with a pretty fine comb, and found very very little that jumped out as worrisome. Here's all I've got:
- Stockton is known as a dangerous town. It may make more sense to serve US-I-CA-580 commuters who forget to charge somewhere along the Tracy-Livermore area, rather than Stockton. If they do install chargers around there (Tracy-Livermore), it might be a good idea to install huge load shifting battery backup and/or solar panels in this area and their latest super fast technologies.
- I feel like they left out Burns, Oregon area (or similar concept).
The rest are more of observations:
- They feel done with CA-99 & US-I-CA-5. They only filled in a little redundancy for San Luis Reservoir route (near Gilroy), Fresno, Bakersfield and Tejon areas. They seem mostly uninterested in the concept of fill-in in the middle of gaps between existing spots with places like Visalia, Atwater, Patterson, and random in the middle spots like Little Panoche Road/County road J1/W Shields Ave (on I-5) (by my guess, that name portends a bad bad town, so perhaps a slightly different location from there in particular). Tesla is leaning on their ability to go 150 miles in their cars, something that most other brands cannot yet do. This allows them to cluster SuperChargers, which makes for a more reliable experience, in the cases that some SuperChargers go down randomly. But it also means that forgetful drivers will have to remember to pay special attention to charging locations (that are clustered) rather than drive until near empty (with spots all along every route much like gas stations), a paradigm shift some of us were predicting but seems to clearly not be one Tesla wants to support.
- They are hitting more spots on US-101 and CA-1; nothing spectacularly dense nor equidistant, but more robust. There were some routes I could not make in my 60 on cold windy days (that I can make now in warmer summer!), which they went ahead and put in future markers that would fix that (allowing my 60 to make it even in winter).
- My observations for the rest of the country are that they are filling in, almost as if they're one stage behind for USA than they are for California (and even on some new routes two stages behind as they actually turn on some routes). But you can also see evidence of them copying their most current California stage in the rest of USA: many SuperCharger locations only a very short distance from existing locations.
- I have no internal view, but I feel like it makes some sense that some of their locations are being picked according to jurisdictional and electrical issues, or more generally, locality of civilization. For instance, I saw some very remote areas that looked like obvious midpoints to consider that probably didn't have enough population support for electricity, maintenance, and additional use. What I mean is that they seem uninterested in setting up outposts of their own, forming new towns, etc., rather than just using existing population infrastructure.
- Most of the new-town filler spots Tesla picked in California just have the "Coming Soon" pointer simply placed by the town name, suggesting that they are going to locate the SuperCharger locations anywhere in that town, not specifically where the pointer is located. I really hope it doesn't mean they're just installing them near government centers and downtowns; while sometimes those locations might make sense, sometimes they do not, depending on how the towns grew over the eras (and in most cases have the most crime, least attractions, least traveled route and least logical location for modern travelers).
- No word on new service centers.
If you look more carefully, those spots are new redundancy locations near existing locations, or slight situational improvements or new target ideas. For instance, the future Manteca mark is near a town name, and the future Gilroy location is out on 152 closer to 156, which I've been complaining about not existing because I hate bypassing up to Gilroy whenever I take 156 (Watsonville, Monterey or Salinas to I-5 route doesn't go near Gilroy). It usually isn't a problem because I just use Santa Nella (Gustine), but lately when Gustine was down, it did matter. Even then, it was only 20 minutes out of my way, using a Chademo, or driving slower than trucks to get to some distant SuperCharger, so not an emergency, just languid. I still think that we'd be better served to actually put it out onto 152 past the 152-156 merge, such as that Casa De strip, or near the North end of Hollister Airport, to actually be on the 156 route rather than still having to bypass up to San Felipe. Hollister itself would make sense, allowing travel into the rest of the 25 route, but that is very unpopulated, so not much use. 156 makes more sense as a target, and as near as possible to 25 on 156 even more so, but that intersection is unpopulated so doesn't make great sense.. Even where 156 crosses 101 could make a little sense, but that's unpopulated and lacks facilities. Basically, the Casa De strip (a tourist trap stop with high prices and low quality) and Hollister outskirts (unpopulated, many farms, hard to locate) make the most sense. Also, there's that town "San Juan Batista" that I've never stopped in that as I look at it would be a great location, probably better than the Casa De strip, and probably better than Hollister proper: San Juan Batista is a short range from both 101 and Hollister, and
on 156. I have no idea if it is a safe town. But, it is civilization, so probably beats the other two locations I mentioned.
A lot of my experiences in the Model S 60D range got me very appreciative of last year's fill-in spots and redundancy push. Without fill-in and redundancy, the 60 would have been stranded with even the slightest of down times in the old network, but as it stands, down-times are just an inconvenience at worst (and a slight jaunt over to a nearby location at best). Some exotic routes like the Sierra Nevadas are still dependent on every SuperCharger working in a path, but that's levels behind the main populated routes; supporting the Sierra Nevadas is still new last year, and I think it's fantastic what they've done up there. I've enjoyed many trips to the mountains in my 60 that probably wouldn't have worked before last year.
