This would only be true if public fast charging stations were the only way to charge EVs, but that's not the case. Most EV owners charge at home or work most of the time. (As a Tesla owner myself, only 2.34% of my total mileage has been from Superchargers.)
No. Their charging network is dense enough now that charging stops are usually hardly out of the way at all, and even if I'm not using navigation, the car will warn me if it would ever take almost all of my remaining range to get to the closest Supercharger.
Not OP, but have put ~100k miles on my Model S in four years, and I haven’t ever worried about range anxiety driving back and forth across the US. I carry a 100 foot 10/3 extension cord that allows me to draw 48 miles of range per 12 hours from a 16A 120v outlet if there isn’t a supercharger or level 2/destination charger available, and have only had to use it a handful of times (very rural areas off the beaten path).
I also haven’t ever arrived at a supercharger that wasn’t functional, and that’s really the selling point: the UX of knowing that when you road trip, there is no anxiety. You will plug in, there will be power, you’ll only be at the charger 20-30 minutes, and your credit card will be automatically charged when you depart. Contrast to non Tesla networks where the entire state has been down for days at a time (Missouri about half a year ago).
Tesla spent $800M on their Supercharger network globally to have this competitive advantage, and it covers most of the developed world; it is crucial for them owning the network to guarantee the experience to their customers (versus relying on independent charger networks for their customers’ long range fast DC charging needs).
In the next 2 years, if the other EV manufacturers (and corresponding charging networks) don't learn to play nice together, Tesla is going to become a monopoly. I drive a Tesla, but would really like another option when shopping for my next car. Any reliability of the payment/operation of a L3 charger below 90% is a 'no go' for me.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 23.0 ms ] threadI also haven’t ever arrived at a supercharger that wasn’t functional, and that’s really the selling point: the UX of knowing that when you road trip, there is no anxiety. You will plug in, there will be power, you’ll only be at the charger 20-30 minutes, and your credit card will be automatically charged when you depart. Contrast to non Tesla networks where the entire state has been down for days at a time (Missouri about half a year ago).
https://supercharge.info/map
Tesla spent $800M on their Supercharger network globally to have this competitive advantage, and it covers most of the developed world; it is crucial for them owning the network to guarantee the experience to their customers (versus relying on independent charger networks for their customers’ long range fast DC charging needs).