Well, give it time. As combustion vehicles are outlawed [1] and billions of dollars are poured into charging stations [2], early adopters will pave the path to get to the future you want. I've driven over 50k miles cross country in the US on Superchargers [3], and it's a pleasant experience using them and works for us (most of the time the car is done charging before we're done with our pit stop or grocery shopping). Happy to help drive forward innovation as a consumer (being the squeaky wheel demanding charging infra from any business I interact with that'll listen). See you in the future!
(i am also advocating with policy makers to outlaw new petroleum filling station permits/infrastructure, but that is a topic for another thread. i am applying YC startup school lessons to public policy efforts. please excuse the dust while the electrification of transportation ramps)
I think the charging situation is incredibly overrated. This really only matters for long trips. If you are someone driving 200-300 miles daily, it might be an issue, but at at the same time I can't imagine driving that long to stop for 30 minutes.
If you commute like most Americans (26 minutes), then you just charge at home and never think about it. I don't think people realize that most Telsa owners don't use public chargers.
Which is no problem, if it only takes 5 minutes to fill up. But when I use a route calculator from Tesla, it schedules two charges (one 45 minutes the other 20 minutes), to get to my in-laws. At places where I don't want to stop. There are, apparently no super-chargers between Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Do you know how many gas stations there are on that route?
Right now I can choose what I want to eat, find one of those restaurants and fill up there. You can't pretend as if the opposite (planning around where my car wants to go, and eating what happens to be there) is the same thing.
Nor can you pretend that it is just as convenient to spend an hour and 5 minutes waiting for my car to charge when I normally spend 10 minutes max filling it up.
I just compared, and that's a route where having the long range Tesla makes a big difference. With the long range, the charging is reduced by around 30 minutes, so it only adds 30 compared to the ICE car, and only requires one charging stop.
Do you normally go through Bloomington? Both Google Maps and the A Better Route Planner say it's faster to go through Indianapolis.
Do I know you? Did I say where I was going from and to? Lol. Just a bit confused/creeped out.
But from Cincinnati to WI (the route I’m talking about) I always go through Indianapolis. I used the default car. Didn’t think much about the range differences, but you’re right. That makes a big difference.
Basically all superchargers are placed next to food and the major highways.
It's not "who knows where". Your car knows where and its right off the interstate in a parking lot next to a lot of places to eat. Better than most gas stations actually.
You want to eat while you charge? Get food next to your charger. They have already thought of all this when they were spending billions of dollars on building out charging infrastructure
I don't want to stop for food, order, wait, eat, get in the car, drive to who knows where for a charger, and then start charging for 30 minutes.