dmacarthur said:
Despite the crowds at a small number of urban stations, most Supercharger Stations are lightly used most of the time.
There is a 16-stall Tesla station near us, maximum number of cars seen charging there over the past few years: 4, ever, usually one or none. The next nearest Tesla station is over 75 miles away, so the premise that Tesla is better suited to traveling is false at least around here- between this Tesla station and the next one there are multiple CCS/Chademo chargers. Fewer stalls per station but way more convenient locations.
I guess I don't understand your point. Seventy-five miles is a trivial distance for any modern EV when traveling long distance, assuming that it is in the direction one wants to go. For local use, by those without home charging, sure — having convenient locations is helpful. For road trips, one wants stations located every 50 to 100 miles along major routes. I live in a remote rural mountain location, a hundred miles from the nearest Interstate highway, and the nearest Supercharger Station is thirty miles away. I don't use it save for returning from road trips to get the last bit of charge to make it home.
I hope that, eventually, DCFC stations will be as ubiquitous as gas stations are now so that most freeway exits will have several to choose from.
I have some experience with road trips, having done more than 100,000 miles of long trips, of my total of 153,000 miles, over the last seven years. 431 different Supercharger Stations in 22 states and 2 provinces, most recently 4500 miles in May to Oregon (ninth routine family visit) and four national parks in Alberta and BC. The difference in Supercharger Station coverage seven years ago and now is considerable and it has been fun to experience.
I hope that I'm stating the obvious when I point out that road tripping in an EV is quite different from doing so in an ICE car. In an EV, one wants to charge just enough to make the next fast charge station, plus a safety buffer of perhaps 20% in case of unexpected weather issues. Then charge only enough to make the next stop. The reason is that cars charge much more quickly when near empty and slow as they fill. It is more time efficient to fast charge only during the rapid part of the charge curve. That means more short charge stops rather than fewer, much longer, charge stops. Level 2 destination charging to near full overnight is also helpful because it means skipping several fast charge stops the next morning.
Back on topic: On May 25th the Ford CEO said “This is great news for our customers who will have unprecedented access to the largest network of fast-chargers in the U.S. and Canada with 12,000+ Tesla Superchargers plus 10,000+ fast-chargers already in the BlueOval Charge Network.” At the time, there were about 2004 open Supercharger Stations with about 21,400 stalls. Since 12,000+ stalls is fewer than the total, 21,400, and far fewer than the number of stalls that will be active next year when the adapters are available, my assumption is that Ford (and GM and others) will have access to only part of the Supercharger network, at least to begin with.
For the record: In North America, Tesla currently has 2094 open Supercharger Stations, with 22,387 stalls. There are 171 stations under construction and 318 stations with permits issued but not under construction, so far as has been observed (source: supercharge.info). The number of Supercharger Stations and stalls continues to increase rapidly.
Adding to this is the report today that seven major automakers now plan a joint venture to build 30,000 stalls in USA and Canada:
G.M. and Other Automakers Will Build 30,000 Electric Vehicle Chargers
