Which is more important for mass market EVs....

nwdiver said:

However, I rarely if ever use 50kWh of my pack... looking back a 60 would have suited me just fine

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Funny u should say that cause a P85 owner told me the other day this same exact thing. Never has he gone below 60 miles of range. I'm happy with my 60. More range is pointless for me. Yeah yeah yeah... resale value, deeper discharge cycles, less power.... blah blah blah. I know. I love my 60.

Wrt to poll, they are both (currently) equally important imo...

I'd initially thought about range, but with increased range comes increased charging times. Having extended range that you can't use because you don't want to sit at a charger forever isn't useful.

A lot of that honestly depends on how far you are traveling. Both of those factors only effect road tripping, as a 200 mile range EV would provide all the range necessary for 95% of the populations daily needs.

For a shorter trip, I would rather have more superchargers than a longer range battery pack. It gives more flexibility in where you are going, and how you get there.

For a longer trip, I would rather have the larger battery. Stopping to supercharger 2-4 times on a trip is not a big deal. If you are making a road trip that requires 5+ 1 hour charging stops, it starts to become a bigger problem. The slower charge rates of the smaller batteries means that you will spend more time total a a charger than you would if you had a larger battery, even if you consume the same amount of power with either.

At the end of the day, the biggest question is "how are you going to use your car?" For me, I view my 60 kWh car as a "regional EV". If the road trip is more than 3-400 miles each way, I am probably going to evaluate flying or taking a different vehicle. More frequent superchargers would give me more flexibility on where I can actually take the car. If you want to easily do 500+ mile road trips, the bigger battery may be the better choice for you.

I think the problem is too complex to pick one or the other without extended discussion. I would say initially longer range is more important, because it takes a long time to get Superchargers built and there are still a lot of Superchargers to go. But long term, more Superchargers is more important, to support more varied trips and car choices. The problem is the time it is taking to build out the Supercharger network. It could be many years still until there are enough of them to keep demand reasonably low and support the majority of trip needs.

In reality SuperChargers are more important.

However, I think 400 miles of range will make for an easier sell (and thus faster adoption) than having SuperChargers every 50 miles.

There will be a lot of cars that perpetually have 300 miles of range in reserve though...

ibdb said:

I'd initially thought about range, but with increased range comes increased charging times. Having extended range that you can't use because you don't want to sit at a charger forever isn't useful.

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Not quite. Increasing the range decreases the overall charge time required, due to the taper effect.

Absolutely superchargers... 99% of all driving is going to be from home chargers. So the few times you go on a road trip if you have to stop 4 times instead of 3 times it's no big deal. But if you can't find a charger without going 15 miles out of your way that's a big problem.

I needed to drive 9,800 km in April. Thanks to the Superchargers this was possible and convenient.

A larger battery would have shaved some time off the longer trip legs

- faster charging (not getting in the tapering as fast)
- less frequent charging

Less frequent charging saves also the time to get off the highway, pull into the Supercharger and get back on the highway after charging. About 5 minutes.

So yes, I like both.

WRT this poll: Batteries are calculated into the cost of the vehicle, Supercharge enabling was just a flat fee per car.

I think the bigger issue is a national standard for car charging. I would pick superchargering. My 85 is plenty of range.

Sure both is important, but the data from how cars are used every day shows that 200 miles of range covers the vast majority of all traffic on the roads. The average annual mileage is 15k. So that's approx 50 miles a day. Having real world 200 miles range in an EV covers almost everyone's day to day use easily. I drive 45k miles a year, that's three times the average. Still the 200 miles range of the Model S does fine! There is no advantage to having more range. There are few people that need more than 200 miles every day. But for those 300 miles doesn't cut it either. For all long distance traveling you need plenty of very fast charging stations. Yes eventually a larger battery would be good to help reduce the number of charging stops, but it would be wasted cost and weight for 90% of all traffic.

Everyone wants more range yet real world data shows it is really not needed and makes no economical sense in a EV where the battery is so expensive and heavy. No one even thinks about what their range is in a ICE because they know it doesn't matter. There are plenty of gas stations. And that's exactly what we need for EVs. We need plenty of charging stations so that range becomes irrelevant.

I said 'more range', not because that's what I think is necessary, but because that's what I think is necessary to overcome the perception of the public and allow *mass market EVs* to be successful. Prospective owners can't really understand that 300 miles is excessive, until they actually ARE owners and learn for themselves...

It seems to me that the most logical long term solution will probably be mostly universally available common standard supercharging, following the tesla model, but broadened to some pay-by-the-drink option, eventually. For now i cannot see another easy solution.

Eventually also there should be rentable long-range battery pack additions so that one need not carry long-range batteries at all times, somewhat analogous to the long-range and ferry tanks for aircraft, which enable very long range, at the expense of load capacity, but enable not carrying all the extra weight all the time.

Sometime such a solution will come unless batteries suddenly gain energy density of 10-15 times current levels with equal other performance characteristics. That currently seems unlikely for many years. Supplemental capacity will enable longer trips without excessive charging stops.

That said, if there were a 110 option I would buy it. a 25% or so range increase would make current Tesla Superchargers everything I would want them to be. Trip legs of four hours are about all I would want to do anyway.

It's all about supercharging. Even the 20 KWH in my Leaf is more than enough for most in-town (but not metroplex) driving. I would not even consider a S60 with being SC-capable. That's probably why the S85 sold more. Now with the S60 being replaced with the 70D, it will be interesting to see if the mix shifts to the smaller battery. The P, P+, and PD are all in a separate class, and probably purchased more by auto enthusiasts, than regular commuters.

beeeerock said:

I said 'more range', not because that's what I think is necessary, but because that's what I think is necessary to overcome the perception of the public and allow *mass market EVs* to be successful. Prospective owners can't really understand that 300 miles is excessive, until they actually ARE owners and learn for themselves...

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I was going to post the same thing but saw you already did. I agree. Even with gasoline stations everywhere, I doubt people would be happy with an 85 mile gas car (i.e. a Leaf) or even be happy with the winter range of an 85 kWh Model S if it were gas powered.

I doubt people would be happy with an 85 mile gas car (i.e. a Leaf)

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I think the discussion is for 200+ mile range. When superchargerss are found every 25 miles off the highway people won't have range anxiety. Then 200, 250 or 300 mile range won't make much of a difference.

MichFin said:

I think the discussion is for 200+ mile range. When superchargerss are found every 25 miles off the highway people won't have range anxiety. Then 200, 250 or 300 mile range won't make much of a difference.

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It is a little rude to quote 1/4 of their sentence and then ignore the rest. Especially when the rest completely negates your point.

MichFin said:

I think the discussion is for 200+ mile range. When superchargerss are found every 25 miles off the highway people won't have range anxiety. Then 200, 250 or 300 mile range won't make much of a difference.

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Being an EV owner, and early adopter I don't disagree with the sentiment. But the question was around what it will take for mass market adoption. For that, I think range is king. We have gas stations literally everywhere, but very few would accept a gas car with less than 200-300 miles of realistic range even though in theory they could stop and refuel as often as needed with the current deployment of gas stations. Even my Model S can't give me that in normal winter driving (and by that I mean normal speeds with heat at a comfortable level). To this day, the most frequent questions I get about my car are "how far will it go" and "how long does it take to charge".

I'd like to see a related poll that might shed light on the results of this poll.

I'd love to know how often current Model S owners travel long distance by air/rail, and whether they've cut down on air/rail travel and are driving longer distances since they've owned an S, because it's free w/ Superchargers.

I wonder if legions of future owners of $35K Model 3's already drive long distances (moreso than S owners) and to what degree 200+mi range matters.

(Finally, I'll say that this S owner would prefer and eagerly awaits a Tesla that can do 300+mi, even 400+mi between charges, regardless of how densely packed the Superchargers are.)

Once the X rolls out they are going to need a denser pack to appeal to the SUV crowd that throws surf boards on the roof, bikes on the back hitch and coolers on the front hitch then head to the beach...with five people crammed into the CUV... they are definitely going need more energy to push the 5500 lbs plus cargo up the road..