loomis2 said:
It's just that there are plenty of choices to charge your car in every major, or semi-major, city, but instead they should be BETWEEN every city.
I concur with your dissatisfaction with this.
Even for the limited areas that the eVProject did under the stimulus funding, they didn't put them close enough together.
I took my LEAF one time from Chattanooga to Knoxville, and discovered that the DCFC in Athens is almost too far from the one in Farragut west of Knoxville at 65 mph interstate speed and with use of the heater. Recognized I was very marginal on getting to Farragut and turned the heater off for the last half of the trip to Farragut and slowed down to 60 mph. And this was with a 2011 LEAF that had probably only lost 10% to 12% capacity. With the eventual 70% capacity degradation, it would be very challenging to make the trip.
I think part of the difficulty with getting stations installed between the cities now that installations are mostly being funded by businesses willing to support them, is that the DCFC stations between cities will get limited use. If they're going to happen, it will take either government funding (which seems politically unlikely) or funding by a business that has an interest in putting them there (possibly Nissan, like Tesla is doing with their stations).
The overall average speed you can achieve with DCFC between cities with the LEAF 24 kWh (21.5 kWh available for use) battery is pretty low. My overall average speed from my house to a meeting in downtown Knoxville was 38 mph. And the battery was low at that point. Overall trip up and back was probably more like 30 mph.
I'm glad TN has the stations, and that I could get to Knoxville or Nashville, but it is primarily of use if you plan to spend at least 2 or 3 days in the other city. Then the time for charging on a vacation type trip isn't all that bad. But for myself and most people, using the LEAF for a short duration trip between cities isn't very reasonable.
And when I did the trip, the DCFC was free.
Now that Blink is charging $5 per session, the cost for electric will be the same or more than gasoline for my ICE. Probably more, because the stations are so far apart that you have to charge to 100%, and that will require two sessions because the 2011 LEAF stops before getting to 100% if you start with charge level <50%.
For me, I'm glad the DCFC is there in TN, but I will not be using it very much.