As the header states, this is about Tesla and electric vehicles in general so if you’re not interested in either, look away…

Now then, I found this article over at jalopnik.com and written by Michael Ballaban…

Here’s the main problem with Tesla’s Supercharger Network

I’m going to give away the entire article here but basically Mr. Ballaban notes that over the Thanksgiving Holiday when people were out and about with their cars, in Tesla heavy areas, specifically San Luis Obispo, California, there was a line of Tesla cars waiting to use the Superchargers there and Mr. Ballaban concludes that this is the big problem with Tesla’s Supercharger Network: There needs to be more of them.

To which I say: This here is a perfect example of backseat driving (pardon the pun) and/or wanting everything right away/entitledness.

When a significant number of cars first started appearing in the early 20th Century, do you think that gas stations suddenly were everywhere? Do you think people who adopted those early vehicles suddenly had access to hundreds of gas stations within a couple of miles where they were?

Nope.

It took a while for them to appear. Hell, it took a while -decades!- before we had good highways in which one could actually use these newfangled cars!

Tesla, as I’ve noted before, has been in existence a grand total of some 16 years. It is one company founded by Elon Musk who had to put/invest a tremendous amount of money -his own and borrowed- to get the damn thing off the ground. And Tesla had to fight the generalized feeling among many that electric cars were simply not good compared to gas/Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars. Fighting the oil companies, by the way, ain’t easy. They’re among the biggest, most powerful companies around and their lobbyists are very powerful in Washington and around the world.

Yet in those short number of years, Tesla/Musk has changed the attitude that EVs are worthless. They’ve managed to institute, on their own, thousands of Superchargers around the country that will allow those who have Tesla vehicles the ability to travel across this country. Yes, it takes a little longer to charge a EV vs. fill up an ICE vehicle’s tank. Yes, there are far more gas stations around that Superchargers.

But…!

We’re in the early stages of the EV revolution, if indeed it is that.

There are thousands of Superchargers out there but, guess what?, these are only used when one does travel far distances. When you don’t, you tend to use home chargers, if you can.

In my case, I’ve used the Tesla Superchargers a grand total of six times since getting my car in February. The only reason I used those Superchargers was because I was making trips that took me significantly away from home. With only one exception: The very first time I used a Supercharger was one day when I was relatively low on power (I had roughly 150 miles of range, so no danger of being empty) and decided rather than charge at home later on -and because I was so close to a Supercharger- I’d use it to see how it worked.

So, in total I’ve used the Superchargers five times when I actually needed them. Those five times were easy, relatively quick (average 30 minutes charge time, longest was about 40 minutes when I was very low and wanted to get to 80% charge), and most importantly: I did not have any lines to deal with.

Yet the article above makes it sound like “holy hell, look at how people have to wait in line to get their charge!”

Betcha big money those chargers are relatively empty today, after the Thanksgiving weekend, and will stay so with the exception of any big holiday when people are indeed out and about driving long distances. Wait times? I bet they’re nothing today.

But again: WE ARE AT THE START OF THE EV REVOLUTION.

There aren’t that many Superchargers out there because there aren’t that many EV cars out there in comparison to ICE vehicles.

As more and more EVs are sold, I guarantee you more and more Superchargers and other charging stations will appear to deal with the demand.

There may still come a few more Thanksgiving or other holidays in the future where we see lines of cars (Teslas or whatever other vehicle) waiting to get juiced up.

This will change, provided EVs continue to do well, which I believe they will.

Have patience, Mr. Ballaban. Rome wasn’t built in one day.

Chargers will appear more and more, just as gas stations eventually did.

Give ’em time.