Fill gaps in SC routes before starting new?

Tesla have pulled permits for 2 SC's of a new route between Oklahoma City & St Louis of what I assume will still require a third SC to complete the route. This will allow travel from both to Springfield and Bentonville so long as you charge at each but not the entire distance without the 3rd SC. Not sure how many people drive to Springfield though. At least this will add a critical route once the 3rd SC is installed.

Worse though, they've begun two new routes heading east of Dallas. These appear to be of very limited usefulness without several more SC's on each (or are there popular vacation destinations that these will serve?). Great that they're doing these. People in Dallas need to be able to go somewhere other than OK. However, it seems to me that these resources would be much better used to fill the gaps in other routes to complete some networkable routes rather than building out limited use stubs. Or at least focusing on one or two new routes at a time rather than several.

Personally for me a SC between Louisville & Nashville and another between Nashville & Birmingham would be extremely helpful. The current distances are likely doable in perfect weather but not for half the year when it's colder (Probably still doable in an 85 or any 90 but not in a P85D or 70). I think this would open things up for a lot of people heading to the coast in winter as the Greenville AL & Auburn AL SC's s/b reachable from a SC near Decatur AL.

They did pull a permit for Erie PA to fill in the gap between Cleveland & Buffalo which should help a lot of people from east & west of Erie.

TaoJones said:

There is a wonderful opportunity here for an out of the box solution: Leverage travel centers.

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NO! Those places are disgusting. The Tesla folks doing the SC's get a lot of credit for at least placing most of them near decent places for food and cappuccinos. Louisville so far the best in my experience with Heine Bros coffee across the street. Chicago's Country Club our worst experience (no safe way to walk from SC to Applebees or other places and drivers who I'm pretty sure are either blind or get points for killing Tesla owners and that Applebees was the best food option nearby).

David99 said:

One possible way could be partnering with a large company that has properties all across the country. Tesla seems to have made deals with Holiday Inn and some fast food chains, but only on a small scale.

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Agree. The destination charger program is in its infancy and will hopefully take off. Many places we've visited do install both a Tesla HPWC and J1772. With the program there is little cost to add Tesla since the HPWC itself is free. Every B&B we've stayed at has said that the charger was worth it as they've had enough Tesla owners stay to more than make up the costs.

It would help though if everyone would swallow their pride and use the Tesla plug instead of design-by-committee J1772, CCS, and others that are bulkier, less capable, and I assume more expensive. I think a lot of potential destinations are hesitant to do anything thinking they'll wait until there's a standard because they fear being stuck with a betamax.

S'toon said:

There are no Superchargers between Alberta and Southern Ontario. There are also no Supercharger in most of Quebec, or the Maritimes. Tesla shows no interest in building any Superchargers in Canada.

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They'll get there eventually. Just think where we were three years ago and how far we've come thanks to Tesla.

My original point is that a network is massively more powerful than an isolated charger. There are a number of places where a single SC will allow travel for thousands of people in hundreds of cities rather than dozens of people in one city. They need to do both and they need to show that they're doing stuff near cities with a lot of sales potential like Dallas* (and I think Canada will be a while due to lack of density reducing sales potential bang for their buck in these early days). My concern is that it seems they are leaning too far towards new routes vs gap filling and should be a little more balanced.

* And perhaps there's more to why they seem to be focusing on a ton of buildout than practicality would suggest.

mikeash said:

they're just discovered by enterprising people interested in finding this stuff out, and people don't always find them right away.

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Agree. But they have been amazingly good with it though (which is much appreciated).

RiverBrick said:

I wouldn't say the Ottawa-Montreal corridor is a void. There are probably twice as many Model S in those two cities than in all of Michigan, yet a relatively rural site, Cadillac, MI, was considered more of a priority.

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From what I can see the major routes that people would travel in Canada are fairly well covered. Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton are connected and those with Seattle. Toronto and Montreal (and Quebec) are connected and those with primary connected routes to U.S. cities and then on to much of the rest of the U.S. I do agree with you about some gaps south of Montreal & Quebec (Plattsburgh?) that need to be filled but these are connecting relatively limited population areas (Toronto & Quebec areas) vs what I was originally referring to as gaps connecting multiple cities to multiple cities.

For comparison, I-87 at Plattsburgh gets 21,000 vehicles per day while I-65 at Horse Cave (between Louisville & Nashville) gets 94,000 vehicles per day. Both are gaps between major cities. Which is likely to have more people needing to charge? The difference is that the I-65 gap is carrying traffic not just between Louisville & Nashville but people traveling from numerous cities north of Louisville and from south of Nashville.