The supercharger network is indeed a massive advantage for Tesla. For now, it's obviously necessary, since the range of the cars on the road is generally limite

The supercharger network is indeed a massive advantage for Tesla. For now, it's obviously necessary, since the range of the cars on the road is generally limited to 200-300 miles. But even in 3-4 years, when new Teslas likely have a range of 400 miles, or in 7-8 years when the standard range is maybe 600 miles, it will grant drivers the certainty that even if they forget to charge at home or at work for several days, or even if they wanna do a road trip that exceeds the range, there will be the fall back of the super chargers. Given that the amount of Teslas on the roads is growing exponentially these months, Tesla will probably have to grow the supercharger network too. Until recently, there were around 300,000 Teslas on the roads worldwide sharing some 11,000 charging points at 1,350 super charging stations. Soon there are twice as many Teslas on the roads. Next Christmas maybe close to 1 million Teslas in total. They will need to expand with new locations, more charging points per location and faster charging times. Also, in 3-4 years there will be millions of old Teslas with today's "short" range that still will have to be serviced by super chargers. Most importantly, many apartment dwellers, i.e. the younger buyers in the cities that will constitute a great deal of the core customer base for Model 3 and Model Y once prices drop to $35,000 or below, may find it more convenient to use super chargers in stead of charging at home. This is especially true, if charging times can be reduced a bit. Going forward, Tesla can use the charging stations for all kind of things like promoting other products (solar tiles, powerwall batteries etc.) and even selling third party products, just like regular gas stations.