smac: this post has seriously got me questioning if I am doing the right thing buying a Tesla, it's a big financial decision for me and your point about waiting for an Outlander to charge up is a serious longer term concern. There's also the depreciation side of things, how much are people expecting their car to depreciate over the next few years? Going on my past history I'm not sure how long I would keep it? On the other hand, only in the last few days there seem to be more superchargers coming online. I had decided to cancel but looking around nothing really appeals to me after experiencing the model S! Would you buy one again now?!
My brief thoughts, for what it's worth.
1. The Model S is currently unlike any other EV in that it has a huge range and its own private charging network. I really don't think you should be worrying about Ecotricity chargepoints being blocked by Outlanders because a) in a Model S you will mostly use superchargers anyway and b) if you do travel a route where Ecotricity stops fit better then because you have a huge battery you can simply drive on to the next services if you find that one site has its chargers all in use.
2. If the Ecotricity charge locations get busy then they will a) add more points and b) start charging a fee for use, almost certainly on a per-minute basis for rapid chargers. The latter in particular will cut down a lot of the opportunistic plug-in hybrid usage we see today.
3. Tesla have a resale guarantee which means that depreciation concerns are irrelevant - after 3 years the car's value is guaranteed to be 50% of base cost plus 43% of the price of any options, which was set to match an equivalent big German saloon.
4. Talk of legislation is irrelevant to Tesla. All legislative changes could ever achieve is to prevent government grant money from being used to fund charging points that don't have the "approved" connectors on them. But superchargers are privately funded, so Tesla will keep installing them for as long as they like. The idea that the EU is going to somehow prevent a private business from installing its own private chargers on private land paid for with its own private money is complete nonsense. And for publicly funded charging networks, standardisation is no bad thing - if CCS wins out and becomes ubiquitous then Tesla will simply build a CCS adaptor for their cars.
5. Talk of "scarcity of sites" or of some sort of reluctance on the part of planners seems to be scaremongering with no basis in fact. I'm not aware of any reluctance by planners to grant permission for electric vehicle charging - quite the reverse. And at many locations no planning consent is required anyway.
6. There seems to be a peculiarly British "dissatisfaction" going on on this thread. Today there are 21 live supercharger sites in the UK, with 3 more known to be under construction, and a further 2 that are mothballed while the Ecotricity spat plays out. That's the fastest rollout of Superchargers in any country that Tesla have launched in, ever. When I ordered my Model S back in February I guessed that there might be 5 SCs in the UK by end 2014, and Tesla have smashed through that expectation and show no sign of slowing down. They have partnerships developing with Sainsburys and Q Hotels, which gives them potential access to hundreds of other sites all over the UK. Yes, so far they're skewed a bit towards the South, and towards London, but we understand the reasons for that. The fact remains that I am immensely impresed by the SC network rollout, by TM's attitude to the UK in general, and more than anything else, by my car.
I think @smac's experience is sort-of self-fulfilling - he's decided to buy a relatively inexpensive Model S (60kWh, no supercharging, single charger) and to keep an ICE for long journeys. It's hardly surprising that someone who specced their Model S to make it a unsuitable as possible for long distance travel thinks that his Model S wouldn't be great for long distance travel! If you want to operate your Model S as your "main" car then get the 85kWh version, which includes supercharging, and consider buying a CHAdeMO adaptor for an extra £450 when it arrives. The Outlanders will not bother you one little bit
All that said, if you don't think the Model S suits your needs, for whatever reason, then of course you should not get one. There are some people whose usage patterns don't fit the Model S well, and the last thing you want to be is conflicted about a very expensive purchasing decision.
Not only would I buy another Model S in a heartbeat, but I honestly believe I will never buy a petrol/diesel car of any kind, ever again. Since buying the Model S last year we've also replaced our second car with an EV.