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> The "dozen committed automakers" have nothing. They have installed way more charging stations than Tesla, by several orders of magnitude. Almost every Nissan

> The "dozen committed automakers" have nothing. They have installed way more charging stations than Tesla, by several orders of magnitude. Almost every Nissan, GM, BMW, etc dealership has at least one or two charging stations and they're open to the public. I can see 15 stations within 10 miles of my home, most at dealerships, then a few at malls and stores. Tesla has 3 Superchargers in the entire state, only near highways. The highway already has chargers installed at its rest stops, too (including DC quick chargers), and they're not Tesla chargers, they're the standard connector every other EV uses. PlugShare shows over 50,000 public chargers in the US. Tesla's only built 590 stations. I drive a Nissan Leaf. They're ridiculously cheap (we're talking $10-12K fully loaded for a recent, low mileage certified preowned). I've charged it at public stations. I also look forward to upgrading to a longer range EV as soon as there's one that doesn't cost as much as a house. There are way more than enough non-Tesla charging stations out there to make me comfortable only owning an EV, by any make.

revelation 11y ago
These are not useful chargers for long-distance travel. They are barely above a 230V/15A outlet, and pretty much only useful for top-up charging at destinations. And guess what, Tesla has adapters for all of these. As I said, they have won this already.
- dangrossman 11y ago
  No, looking around me, the Nissan dealers and the highway rest stops have DC quick chargers (480V L3), which are the equivalent of Tesla's superchargers.
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    You're comparing 80% of 80 miles and 80% of 260 miles, and saying that they're equivalent? One is more than 3X faster than the other. One makes it somewhat reasonable to drive long distances, the other does not. BTW, Tesla sells an adapter for Chademo.
    - dangrossman 11y ago
      The Chademo standard supports up to 100 kW of output, while Tesla Superchargers are up to 120 kW. Most of the L3 chargers out there are hooked up to 125A and put out 62.5 kW, but they can be upgraded with no change to cars, and provide comparable recharge times to Tesla's chargers. There are relatively few EVs on the road, and none that have the range of a Tesla, so no customer base to necessitate those upgrades just yet. It's awesome what Tesla has done, but there's really nothing wrong with how the infrastructure is growing for all the other EVs and the standards they've all chosen to support. If the Chevy Bolt flops, it won't be because it takes early adopters 45 minutes at the rest stop instead of 30 to make an occasional long-distance road trip.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Yeah, it'll be because the Bolt's fast chargers are in inconvenient locations and are hard to count on since they're installed in single units. The way the infrastructure is growing for other EVs sucks. If you had a Tesla equivalent car today that couldn't use Tesla superchargers, it would be terrible for long distance travel. It would be slow, painful, and run a substantial risk of stranding when it turns out the one charger you were really counting on has been broken for weeks and the dealer is too busy selling house-sized SUVs to care about repairing it. This could change quickly if the big car makers cared to. So far there's no indication that they do, though.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Typical CHAdeMO chargers are half the speed of a Supercharger or less. They're also often installed in single units, making them highly vulnerable to breakdowns, queueing, or blocking by non-EVs.
mikeash 11y ago
You're comparing apples and oranges. The vast majority of those 50,000 public chargers are slow L2 AC chargers, not L3 fast DC chargers. Many of those 50,000 public chargers are Tesla L2 chargers, too. If you want a proper comparison, filter PlugShare to only show CHAdeMO and CCS, and compare that to Tesla superchargers. And consider that "only near highways" is exactly where they're useful. And that Teslas can use CHAdeMO chargers too. Edit: and go through the non-Tesla fast chargers and see how many are broken down, how many are actually available to the public (some Nissan dealers limit theirs to only LEAFs bought from them), how many are frequently blocked by non-EVs, how many have pathetic power levels like 25kW or less, and in general just how many of those are actually useful for long distance travel. No need to do this for the Tesla chargers, as they're all good. (Except Bethesda. You can count that one out.)
CrowFly 11y ago
Yes. Leaf has all those charging stations because it needs them! If I only had a 75 mile range, I'd be terrified to drive anywhere. Every LEAF owner would rather have a Tesla -- if he could afford one.

revelation 11y ago

These are not useful chargers for long-distance travel. They are barely above a 230V/15A outlet, and pretty much only useful for top-up charging at destinations. And guess what, Tesla has adapters for all of these. As I said, they have won this already.

dangrossman 11y ago
No, looking around me, the Nissan dealers and the highway rest stops have DC quick chargers (480V L3), which are the equivalent of Tesla's superchargers.
- greglindahl 11y ago
  You're comparing 80% of 80 miles and 80% of 260 miles, and saying that they're equivalent? One is more than 3X faster than the other. One makes it somewhat reasonable to drive long distances, the other does not. BTW, Tesla sells an adapter for Chademo.
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    The Chademo standard supports up to 100 kW of output, while Tesla Superchargers are up to 120 kW. Most of the L3 chargers out there are hooked up to 125A and put out 62.5 kW, but they can be upgraded with no change to cars, and provide comparable recharge times to Tesla's chargers. There are relatively few EVs on the road, and none that have the range of a Tesla, so no customer base to necessitate those upgrades just yet. It's awesome what Tesla has done, but there's really nothing wrong with how the infrastructure is growing for all the other EVs and the standards they've all chosen to support. If the Chevy Bolt flops, it won't be because it takes early adopters 45 minutes at the rest stop instead of 30 to make an occasional long-distance road trip.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Yeah, it'll be because the Bolt's fast chargers are in inconvenient locations and are hard to count on since they're installed in single units. The way the infrastructure is growing for other EVs sucks. If you had a Tesla equivalent car today that couldn't use Tesla superchargers, it would be terrible for long distance travel. It would be slow, painful, and run a substantial risk of stranding when it turns out the one charger you were really counting on has been broken for weeks and the dealer is too busy selling house-sized SUVs to care about repairing it. This could change quickly if the big car makers cared to. So far there's no indication that they do, though.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Typical CHAdeMO chargers are half the speed of a Supercharger or less. They're also often installed in single units, making them highly vulnerable to breakdowns, queueing, or blocking by non-EVs.

mikeash 11y ago

You're comparing apples and oranges. The vast majority of those 50,000 public chargers are slow L2 AC chargers, not L3 fast DC chargers. Many of those 50,000 public chargers are Tesla L2 chargers, too. If you want a proper comparison, filter PlugShare to only show CHAdeMO and CCS, and compare that to Tesla superchargers. And consider that "only near highways" is exactly where they're useful. And that Teslas can use CHAdeMO chargers too. Edit: and go through the non-Tesla fast chargers and see how many are broken down, how many are actually available to the public (some Nissan dealers limit theirs to only LEAFs bought from them), how many are frequently blocked by non-EVs, how many have pathetic power levels like 25kW or less, and in general just how many of those are actually useful for long distance travel. No need to do this for the Tesla chargers, as they're all good. (Except Bethesda. You can count that one out.)

CrowFly 11y ago

Yes. Leaf has all those charging stations because it needs them! If I only had a 75 mile range, I'd be terrified to drive anywhere. Every LEAF owner would rather have a Tesla -- if he could afford one.