Which is more important for mass market EVs....

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'd initially thought about range, but with increased range comes increased charging times. Having extended range that you can't use because you don't want to sit at a charger forever isn't useful.

You have that the wrong way round. More range lowers charging. If it's a bigger battery you can charge it at higher power; if it's better efficiency you get more miles per kWh, so you get more miles with for a given time.

It's simple to me: more Superchargers means more stalls, more coverage, more routes possible, less need to plan. Overall, just massively expands the market.

More range would cut the need for Supercharging, but it doesn't put a Supercharger on the route you want to drive.

More coverage also allows for more rightsizing of batteries, where you balance efficiency and cost of the smaller batteried vehicle against charging speed.

 

[Saghost]

I said 'more range', not because that's what I think is necessary, but because that's what I think is necessary to overcome the perception of the public and allow *mass market EVs* to be successful. Prospective owners can't really understand that 300 miles is excessive, until they actually ARE owners and learn for themselves...

Yeah, I'm in this camp, too. I don't really think either one is terribly necessary to the practical operation of mass market EVs, and I'm sure that by the time Tesla gets there we'll have a lot more Superchargers at least in the areas with lots of EVs - but a longer range is what will likely help sell a lot of fence sitters on EVs.

It's not important for mass market EVs to work for people, but more range is important to selling mass market EVs to folks with no EV experience.
Walter

 

[jerry33]

Both are important. I'm not sure that just one of the two is enough. Regardless of how quick SCs are, no one wants to stop every 50 miles on a trip--that's just annoying. 100 to 200 miles is about the right distance.

More range means quicker charging to the same amount of miles.

More range means you can go more places where the SC network is thin.

More range means that weather considerations aren't as important.

More SCs mean you can go more places.

 

[richkae]

Any reasonable amount of additional range ( + 100 real miles ) won't make any trips I am contemplating easier.
But more superchargers will enable a lot of trips.

Washington state needs superchargers along several state highway routes that have none.
We also need superchargers in better locations - near better restaurants - no fast food please, better amenities.

 

[beeeerock]

Both are important. I'm not sure that just one of the two is enough. Regardless of how quick SCs are, no one wants to stop every 50 miles on a trip--that's just annoying. 100 to 200 miles is about the right distance.

Thinking this through further, I agree that there is advantage to both. If you can drive on the fast charging portion of the batteries, more superchargers would allow you to stop for a shorter total time on a long trip... because you wouldn't have to suffer through the taper at the top end of the capacity.

However, more range would mean that the fast charge proportion of the batteries would be larger too, meaning fewer stops. And up to some distance, you wouldn't have to stop at all.

There's a sweet spot in there for every driver, but the problem is, it will be a different sweet spot for just about everyone. However, if it's about mass adoption, we know that range anxiety is the monster under the bed... banishing it to the darkness will sell more cars, even though we know monsters don't actually exist...

 

[David99]

There is one thing that speaks against range and that is price. To get the range higher you need larger batteries that are more expensive. Tesla made the Model S a upper level car which makes it OK to ask a higher price. For the mass market that of course won't work. The majority of people like the idea of EVs but they think they are too expensive. The challenge is really to have both a good price and a good range.

I think another issue is that people can see gas stations easily from the road. Charging stations are virtually invisible to the general public so they think they don't exist.

 

[bxr140]

As a model S owner I have a fixed range, and thus I'd love to see more superchargers. However, with respect to the poll, more range is unquestionably more important. Its not a chicken and the egg type of situation either--EVs simply need more range to be more accepted into mass market levels. The the presence of a mature charging network will not convince 'the masses' to buy an EV. The charging network is even less important in context, because there will be a natural growth in that network as more EVs come onto the market.

It all goes back to the first question that EVERYONE asks about an EV: "What's the range?"