Unless they can make charging as quick as filling a tank with gas, there is a lot of opportunity in location and surrounding services, provided while the batteries are being charged.
Are there any U.S. hotel chains that are in on this?
Hotels have facilities that aren't used after breakfast until the evening, however they still have to have a lot of staff on-site during these hours.
You could have nice food and coffee instead of motorway service station junk, with booking facilities so you can have that coffee ready as you walk through the door and your parking spot for the charging reserved.
This could work really well in the more scenic parts of the world where there is a lot of the infrastructure built out already, just the right plugs with the right volts and amps needed.
Not just "high-end" hotels. On my recent trip round-trip Florida-Texas drive in my Model 3, I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn and two Hampton Inns that had Tesla Destination Chargers. It was nice to pull in with 10-20% charge and pull out in the AM fully charged and not paid anything extra for it.
It's almost there. A Supercharger can charge in about 20 minutes and the navigation in the car shows you food stops and amenities near the Supercharger and then sends you a push notification when the car is nearly completely charged. Considering that this experience is more rare than me being able to charge the car every night at home instead of having to stop at a gas station ever, I think the trade off is in Tesla's favor.
Let's be real here. I just did a 2500 mile road trip in my brand new Model 3. While it is true that 20-25 minutes will give me enough range to drive for 120-160 miles, 20 minutes does not give me a full charge. Charging my Model 3 from ~10% SOC to 80% SOC takes 40 minutes at a Supercharger. The car charges quite quickly from 0% to 50%, but slows down dramatically after that. If you pull in to a Supercharger with 10-20% SOC, 20 minutes will get you up to 50-60% SOC at best.
That being said, I generally didn't mind this. I came to like the slower pace of stops. I know my wife is looking forward to the first road trip we take together in the car, as she always wants to stop and stretch her legs more often than I do.
I just wish more Superchargers had convenient access to 24 hour bathrooms.
I don't think that's accurate either, though. I charged from 5% to the max daily limit (not the trip limit) in 25 minutes and it gave me approximately 264 miles. When I last charged to the full trip limit, I had 314 miles on the car and that took about 40 minutes.
So, even if I just charged every time to the daily limit, I'd still have about the same range as a gas car and I can't fill up my gas car at home on a regular basis. That benefit alone outweighs the cons of a slightly longer trip for me.
PS. Slow down. ;). If you're only getting 160 miles from the daily charge, you're driving pretty fast or using up power in some other way.
