I have reserved the 160 mile battery and I am trying to find good reason to move up to 230 mile.
My question is do I really need access to Tesla’s Supercharging network or will I get similar results with a Public charging station.
They say all Model S cars can use public chargers with the J1772 adaptor so how much slower (or faser) will the public stations be?
All versions of Model S will come standard with a 10kW charger and J1772 adapter. That means charging at up to 40 amps on 230VAC. But many (most?) J1772 EVSEs are limited to 30 amps max current, which is 7.5kW. So empty-to-full on a 40kWh battery will be at least 6 hours, or 9+ hours on a 60kWh battery for the most common J1772 EVSE stations.
You can optionally add another 10kW charger to the car, upping the max AC charge rate to 20kW, or 80 amps on 230VAC. A few select J1772 stations will support 75 amps max current (18-19kW), but Tesla will also sell a Home Power Connector that will provide the full 80 amps for dual-charger-equipped cars once it's installed in your home/garage. On the HPC at 80 amps, empty-to-full will be 2.5-3 hours for a 40kWh battery, or 4-4.5 hours on a 60kWh battery. But feedback from Roadster owners seems to indicate that for overnight charging, 10kW is usually plenty -- just plug your car in when you get home, and it will be full by morning. Some Roadster owners allow use of their home HPC units by other owners for faster mid-trip charging, but that's entirely up to the individuals. I expect similar patterns for Model S owners.
Tesla's DC Superchargers are spec'ed to provide up to 90kW of DC power, or 9x the power of the base single charger option. So it will obviously recharge the car much faster (at least up to 80% full or so; after that the chargers have to "slow down" and reduce power as they approach max battery capacity, and the time differences between chargers start to shrink). I think they are quoting a restoration of 75% charge in 45 minutes for 85kWh Model S batteries today, we can assume it will be at least that fast for the 60kWh batteries.
Right now there's no guaranteed locations for Supercharger deployments though, but all indications point to US West Coast freeway coverage being first on the list. So when or if you get Superchargers installed near you depends a lot on where you live...