6 ms·

I'm really not exaggerating. Look at that Supercharger map again. Put a pinpoint on it randomly, and imagine this is where you live. Put another pinpoint 120 mi

I'm really not exaggerating. Look at that Supercharger map again. Put a pinpoint on it randomly, and imagine this is where you live. Put another pinpoint 120 miles away, and imagine this is where you have family in the next city over. 99% of the time, there will be no Supercharger anywhere near the line between you and your destination. That's the kind of trip people actually make and have range anxiety about -- visiting the grandparents for Christmas -- not the road trip to the other side of the country where you can plan on driving the wrong way for 70 miles to get onto the nearest Tesla-covered route. It's these trips that the Supercharger network is pretty useless for, because it only exists in this weird east-west-north-south grid with entire states empty in the middle of half the lines it draws. Chargers aren't like cell phone stations; they don't provide "coverage" to some radius, they're single points of utility.

chroma 11y ago
That thought experiment isn't very useful, because people aren't randomly distributed across the continent. Much of the plains and rockies are empty of people.[1] 1. https://johnstonarchitects.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pop_lg.jpg https://johnstonarchitects.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pop_l...
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  This may be true, but this is also exactly the kind of country you might want to drive through on your way from your home to a destination.
  - chroma 11y ago
    Tesla has supercharger stations on the major freeways through unpopulated areas. And they're building more. This is effectively a non-problem. Affordability is a much bigger bottleneck for them.
mikeash 11y ago
Look at the Supercharger map and compare it with this map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_popul... Approximately thirds of the US population lives east of the Mississippi. In that region, the holes in the Supercharger network are around western Tennessee, West Virginia, northern Pennsylvania, and northern Maine, all lightly populated with the exception of Memphis. I don't understand your hypothetical. Why would the Supercharger network be relevant at all to a 120 mile trip? Superchargers are for making trips beyond the range of a single charge, not for trips to the next city over which you can easily make on one charge.
- dangrossman 11y ago
  120 to get back home makes it a 240 mile trip.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Plug in while you're there, buy the bigger battery option, or go out to dinner somewhere that has an L2 charger.
    - dangrossman 11y ago
      The grandparents aren't going to have an EVSE for you, there is no larger battery that can do the trip^, and Christmas is not getting moved to a restaurant to accommodate your car. Nobody, not even Tesla, has a good answer to the EV range issue if you don't happen to have a quick charger on your route, and you often won't. That just means Supercharger network versus no Supercharger network probably won't be the thing that keeps people from buying a Bolt, just like it's not keeping them from buying a Tesla. That's the discussion I jumped in on. ^ There's a range calculator on the Model S webpage. If you drop the temperature and turn on the heater, even the 90 kWh battery doesn't have 240 miles range.
      - mikeash 11y ago
        Even a 120V outlet will do the job. A 240V outlet (for example, if grandma has an electric dryer) will be even better. If your response to that suggestion is "The grandparents aren't going to have an EVSE for you" then I don't think you understand this stuff.

chroma 11y ago

That thought experiment isn't very useful, because people aren't randomly distributed across the continent. Much of the plains and rockies are empty of people.[1] 1. https://johnstonarchitects.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pop_lg.jpg https://johnstonarchitects.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/pop_l...

jschwartzi 11y ago
This may be true, but this is also exactly the kind of country you might want to drive through on your way from your home to a destination.
- chroma 11y ago
  Tesla has supercharger stations on the major freeways through unpopulated areas. And they're building more. This is effectively a non-problem. Affordability is a much bigger bottleneck for them.

mikeash 11y ago

Look at the Supercharger map and compare it with this map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_population_map.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/US_popul... Approximately thirds of the US population lives east of the Mississippi. In that region, the holes in the Supercharger network are around western Tennessee, West Virginia, northern Pennsylvania, and northern Maine, all lightly populated with the exception of Memphis. I don't understand your hypothetical. Why would the Supercharger network be relevant at all to a 120 mile trip? Superchargers are for making trips beyond the range of a single charge, not for trips to the next city over which you can easily make on one charge.

dangrossman 11y ago
120 to get back home makes it a 240 mile trip.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Plug in while you're there, buy the bigger battery option, or go out to dinner somewhere that has an L2 charger.
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    The grandparents aren't going to have an EVSE for you, there is no larger battery that can do the trip^, and Christmas is not getting moved to a restaurant to accommodate your car. Nobody, not even Tesla, has a good answer to the EV range issue if you don't happen to have a quick charger on your route, and you often won't. That just means Supercharger network versus no Supercharger network probably won't be the thing that keeps people from buying a Bolt, just like it's not keeping them from buying a Tesla. That's the discussion I jumped in on. ^ There's a range calculator on the Model S webpage. If you drop the temperature and turn on the heater, even the 90 kWh battery doesn't have 240 miles range.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      Even a 120V outlet will do the job. A 240V outlet (for example, if grandma has an electric dryer) will be even better. If your response to that suggestion is "The grandparents aren't going to have an EVSE for you" then I don't think you understand this stuff.