Plug in while you're there, buy the bigger battery option, or go out to dinner somewhere that has an L2 charger.
^ 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.
But we were talking about "most people," not "a tiny tiny proportion of the population that just happens to have the worst case scenario."
If a car sucks for even one of those trips, I'm going to be hesitant to buy it, and if there are two or three circumstances where it would suck, I'm crossing it off of my list. If I can come up with one trip where I'm going to need to sit there for two hours waiting for my car to charge, then the supercharger network, while not being actually useless on the whole, is not particularly convenient for me and therefore not really a strong selling point.
But I can buy a plug-in hybrid like the Chevy Volt for a couple grand less than the cheap Tesla (counting the same tax incentives), and it works for every trip. With the gas generator, it has a range of over 300 miles, and can refill about 280-290 miles of range at an ordinary gas station in 5 minutes. So I can spend a similar amount of money for a much more convenient experience by going with a hybrid and ignoring the superchargers entirely.
Point being, the argument that the supercharger network covers "almost everyone" is flawed. There are a lot of people for whom it still misses at least some of their trips, where other types of EVs perform better, and missing some trips is far more relevant than you seem to give it credit for.
Again, it's not like spending $thousands to avoid the occasional $50 delivery charge for plywood. It's spending basically the same amount on a different type of technology to avoid the occasional flight, car rental, or extra stress on the grandparents. The supercharger network will need to be much more dense before it gets to the point of being a major factor in Tesla's favor.
That's exactly why the Supercharger network is such a big deal. Its existence moves a huge segment of the population from "almost everything" to "everything."
Yes, there's still a group of people where it doesn't do that. I totally accept that. But the person I'm replying to thinks that the Supercharger network doesn't matter outside of California because it's "so sparse as to be useless for most people." Which is far, far from the truth.
The network matters, but it's only a strong selling point for those it moves from "almost" to "everything", and I think that's actually a fairly small segment of the population.
Here's an example that I've actually done twice in the last two years: Denver, CO to Austin, TX. That's about a 900 mile trip, and a long but tolerable day -- from Denver south to Raton, NM and then southeast through Amarillo, south to Lubbock, and then southeast again. To stay on the supercharger network I'd have to go all the way over to Oklahoma City (on either I-40 or I-70 to I-35), adding 150+ miles to the trip, not to mention longer and more frequent stops that would likely necessitate adding an extra half-day of travel time each way.
My brother lives in Chicago. His trips to Indianapolis would be covered, but not his trips to Denver.
Dallas-Fort Worth is a huge population center, with great supercharger coverage leaving north or south, but not east or west. If you're heading to Atlanta, Memphis, or St. Louis the supercharger network is going to be really inconvenient.
And while the majority of the US population does live in major cities connected by interstates, the majority of the US population has at least one close friend or family member they'd like to visit, who isn't connected by one of the supercharger-served routes. If you made graphs not just of population centers, but of close personal connections, your "graph of graphs" would have quite a few connections that aren't covered by the network. (While truck traffic and passenger traffic are not identical, figure 2.8 of https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/bottlenecks/chap2.cfm suggests quite a few heavily-trafficked routes that aren't covered by the supercharger network.)
It's not my intent to be overly negative. I'm just being realistic, presenting the analysis I did myself about 6 months ago after my old car got wrecked in a hit-and-run. The majority of the time, I'd be happy with a Tesla and the supercharger network, but a couple times a year it would be a massive inconvenience. This is an area where the difference between 95% and 100% is huge. Tesla/superchargers are getting there, but it'll be several years before the infrastructure is in place for a pure electric plugin with a 200 mile range becomes a truly viable vehicle for the majority of people.
What's the basis for this statement? I mean, sure, if you live in a poorly covered area like Texas, or in an area that has good coverage but is near the edge like Chicago, you're likely to have places to go that aren't covered. But that's not where most people live.
Freight and car traffic are so different that I really see no point in even bringing up that map.
Note that I'm not in any way disbelieving your personal situation. If you live in Dallas and you ever go anywhere that isn't north or south then clearly the network is not suitable for you. I'm not trying to argue otherwise. I'm just arguing that most of the country isn't like Texas.
I know people who live all over the country. I see their vacation photos on facebook. And even those who live in pretty well-served areas (like NYC or Boston) don't make 100% of their out-of-town trips along the covered interstates -- sometimes they go visit a cousin in Cleveland, and NYC to Cleveland via I-80 isn't covered by the network. Even NYC to Buffalo is questionably covered.
> "that's not where most people live"
The Metro Statistical Areas of NYC, LA, DC, Philly, Miami, and Boston account for about 56 million people combined. Dallas, Chicago, Houston, and Atlanta are poorly covered and account for 29m. Of the next 10 MSAs on the list (populations in the 3m-4m range), 5 of them are pretty well covered in all directions and 5 have significant gaps. If you account for the whole top 50 MSAs, I only see another 6 that are well-covered along all major travel routes -- bringing the total population in those well-covered areas to around 85m. The US population is around 320m total.
My contention is that the majority of the US population lives in areas that are not well covered, and that even those who live in well-covered areas will on average have at least one trip they'd like to take that isn't served by the network.
Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying the network "sucks" or is "useless" like a previous poster. I'm saying that it's not yet built out to the point where it's suitable for the majority of the population for 100% of trips. It's suitable for the majority of the population for 80-90% of trips, maybe, but not 100%. Those who live in well-covered cities and make all of their trips on well-covered routes are actually in a distinct minority, perhaps one that is well represented on Hacker News, but a minority nonetheless. Which means there will be some market penetration by the Model 3, and other pure-electric vehicles with a ~200 mile range and the ability to recharge quickly, but we're still several years away from the transition from "this is a good solution for some people" to "this is a good solution for almost everyone". Right now, plug-in hybrids are a viable solution for a much larger slice of the population.
"I'm sorry Jane, would you mind terribly unhooking the clothes dryer and pulling it away from the wall so I can charge up my car while we visit."
Compare to: "I'm sorry Jane, would you mind terribly if I place a tank full of volatile and carcinogenic liquid next to your house?"
Gas cars have their own problems, we're just used to them by now. EVs aren't perfect, and there are many legitimate scenarios where they aren't (yet) practical, but their problems get exaggerated beyond belief.
I think the point is most people don't want to plan all of their activities around the needs of their car.
I understand that there are people where this is not the case, and that some of the people commenting on this thread are in that group. I just don't think that it's the common case anymore.
Only reason at all I bought a Tesla is there's a Supercharger about 60mi from my house on that route. I can do the trip in good weather without the Supercharger. However with cold it becomes necessary.
Other fast charging? Forget about it. All the CHAdeMO along the route(there is only two) are 40kw which would take me 3x longer to charge. Also the tend to be non-functional regualrly and only have 1-2 slots vs 8 for the Supercharger.
The reason I started the parent thread is exactly this, once you own an EV with 120kw charging it changes everything for long trips.
Yeah, it seemed at least three years ago driving from DC to Boston in the winter was pretty much impossible... and that's one of the most traveled routes in the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the...
There's a lot of people I talk to who the only driving they do is from home to work to the grocery store. These are the ones insisting very loudly that range isn't an issue with EVs and there's no convincing them otherwise, its only a theoretical problem for them.
And three years is a long time. Here's what the Supercharger situation looked like then:
http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_AFED015E-139C-420B-A040-FE...
Here's what it looks like today:
http://mikeash.com/tmp/screenshot_A922B393-0F4B-4E07-9CEA-50...
You'll notice a slight increase in the availability of chargers along that corridor.
In my experience, the people insisting very loudly than range isn't an issue with EVs are all Tesla owners who have taken their cars on 1,000 mile road trips, while the people who insist that Superchargers are worthless and long trips in EVs are terrible are all working from partial information, speculation, and imagination.
I'm not going to say that EVs are always perfect, but for many people, the charging experience can overall be a a point in favor, not against. It's not like traditional cars are perfect in this regard, we've just become used to them.
I totally agree that if you park on the street, it's not going to work well for you right now. Eventually we'll get to the point where charging is plentiful even for street parking, but that's going to be a very long time.