I've been to Toronto 4 times in the last 2 years, twice with my Tesla, so I have walked a few miles in your shoes. I wouldn't be commenting in this thread if I had no clue about the area. I was mostly just agreeing with Sakimano that this too shall pass and owning a Tesla while living in a place without charging can be managed.
Also the fact that you are counting "Coming Soon" pins as if they really mean anything tangible seems kind of n00bish. Anyone who has been around these forums for more than a couple months knows they are aspirational at best. By that same token, the GTA has 9 locations that are "Coming Soon(!)" so fear not
I do agree with you though that the Tesla map is misleading and is sort of a bait and switch and they should stop with all the "Coming in 2018" and "Coming in 2019" pins.
I'd agree that pin-counting can get tedious, but this is the only communication we get from the charger team. In fact there's no "com" about it; the charger team does not stoop to
communicate with us mere owners, they only "municate", and the only munication we get is the 'coming soon' pins. To be fair, I've found that those pins do give some idea in a general sense of Tesla's intentions, and although the actual sites may vary somewhat in terms of location and timing, it's still a good indication of what will eventually come to pass.
I'm glad you've had chances to visit our city, but I must point out that visiting is different from living here, and living in the burbs is different from living in the city core. The specific issue with Lawrence that is getting lost in all the discussions about nobbishness, and dicks etc is that Lawrence actually fulfilled too many roles; new car delivery charging, maintenance charging, en-route charging, and finally, home-charging substitution. No wonder it was the busiest charger in the country, and certainly due to have those duties split up across multiple new chargers. The trouble is that according to the 'coming soon' map, Tesla is not providing substitutes for these other roles, merely reserving the charger for the two internal Tesla roles; in short, looking after themselves.
There seems to be no indication that the charger team understands the last role, which arises for those intrepid owners who purchased there cars despite being permit parkers without access to private property on the faith that the situation was not in any way ideal, but that 'this to shall pass'. Instead, we get what appears to be a backward move. To give it context, there are around 57,000 permit parkers in the city core historic residential areas. These are home owners, not condo unit holders. The city will not allow underground cables to the curb, so there is no relief on that front. The choice is to charge-up from a low battery level at the first en-route charger, making trip times expand significantly, often with a cold-saturated battery in winter, or make a special charging trip (not too bad an option if the charger isn't too far away). Lawrence wasn't too far away for many of those in the east-end historic residential areas, so it was a reasonable short-term solution. Now, with Lawrence closed, the second choice is not practical, and phantom winter power loss is creating a pinch-point when I don't happen to have any outings that take me close to a charger. I'm busted down to asking my neighbour if I can use their driveway on occasion, and run a long RV extension across our yards.
I'd not complain if this was 2012 and as an EV pioneer, creative work-arounds are the norm, but we're going into 2018 and Tesla has known about this problem for years, and the alternatives are poor. Those 57,000 people I talked about are not going to buy EVs when they find out they have to charge from the neighbour's driveway, assuming they're lucky enough to have that option. I know, since my neighbours are always asking me how I charge when they see me at the curb shinning up my rocket, and when they find I have to drive up to Lawrence to charge, they're turned off. You can image their reaction when I mention what I have to do now. Not at all good for the EV landscape here. The problem exists not just here, but in the historic residential areas of all major cities. I can't say to what extent Tesla has dealt with this problem elsewhere though.
It's an inexact art to interpret the 'coming soon' map to impute Tesla's planning. What I'd like to see is for Tesla to improve its communications by having the charging team communicate its planed strategy for the coming year to the applicable local owner groups. That a dialog take place with Tesla taking into account and responding specifically to any concerns expressed by the clubs before it finalises its yearly development plans. In other words, some proper respectful communication where Tesla acknowledges the right of Tesla owners to have some collective input to the future of the charger network. If it wasn't for us early pioneers who bought our cars on faith, Tesla would have been another start-up flop. So, Tesla should have a little respect for that. Such an approach would certainly be an improvement over pin-counting and all the teasing hints at this or that which is becoming the norm with Tesla, and is so childish.
