While we had EVs on the road from the late 1990's there were in small volumes. I still have my 2002 RAV4 EV. It's a rare day when I see another one on the road. Toyota only sold about 300 to consumers, so that generation never had the volume to support a QC network. In San Jose, I'm having days where I see 4 or more LEAFs on the road - Just yesterday, two were parked in the same strip mall my bank is in. There's 6,500+ LEAFs in the US now.
50 strategically placed QC in CA will go a long ways. Say 20 for every 30 miles along highway 101, another 30 for various routes like 680, 80 etc. It makes the city that's 50 miles away from home an easy run of there's a QC in the city with somethinng you like to do near it for 30 minutes. The 3.3 kW charger is too whimpy when you need to wait for a charge. 3.3 vs. 6 kW is the difference of having to spend 3 vs. 6 hours at your destination. The QC is 30 minutes.
It's also about pushing the technology and accelerating the deployment. If you want to see more electrified transportation and use your LEAF for more of your trips, getting the QC port will ecourage the development of a QC network. Particularly if you get involved and help to identify QC sites, work with site owner and develop a funding model for the significant operating costs of a QC as part of a subscription plan, a marketing budget, maybe the city tourism bureau, green intiatives etc. Remeber that vehicles are already heavily subsidized by the real estate costs of the parking space.
There's no publicly accessible operational QC within over 200 miles of me in San Jose right now. (Vacaville has a QC, but it's not available to the public.) By the end of the year we should see 3 or 4 QC showing up at Nissan Dealers. The Dealers are funding them to support the LEAF. Other QC will be coming, though there are significant challenges in identifying sites and the business model to fund the operational costs, particularly for utilities that have peak electricity kW demand charges. There will be a useful ChaDEMO infrastructure long before and SAE standard network. No announced vehicles even have the SAE port, much less any of them on vehilces on the road today. There are thousands of LEAFs with ChaDEMO ports on the roads today.
Hopefully, I'll be ably to use QC to take day trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is 70 miles away, one way. 6.6 kW charging there would work, but the LEAFs whimpy 3.3 kW won't cut it, because I'd have to spend 6 or 7 hours there.
The QC port is about pushing the adoption of EVs and in the next 2-4 years, getting more utility out of your LEAF. I also like the HomeLink, cargo cover, and rearview camera. Yes, the solar panel is a little gimmicky, but one of the issues the 2002 Prius has is the 12V aux battery getting discharged. It also help people make the connection of renewable energy and electric cars, though of course the solar panel doesn't do anything for propelling the LEAF, think of it more in terms of a little 12V suppport and a graphic sign that reads, "Plug your EV into the Sun*" (*using solar panels on your home or renewable energy certificates).