They have added an 80% cap to a handful of busy chargers in California.
What they should do is add an electronic queue for the chargers, and automatically add the $0.40/minute idle rate to any charging above 80% when someone is queued for your charger.
They also need to do something about people with low voltage cars taking the high voltage spots. Something like a time factor in the price for the high voltage stations, to discourage low voltage cars using those unless necessary.
Some new cars have 800V architecture and will be able to benefit from high voltage chargers as they roll out.
There are also cars that can't charge at 350kW, but still take a 350kW charger.
Charging a 100kW car in the 350kW bay is fine, but these owners should be given some reason to prefer a 100kW or 150kW charger if it's available. I like the idea of using someone being queued for the charger to trigger an infrastructure charge if you are underutilizing the charger, just like we already do if you are simply parked there and not charging.
At the very least, require that drivers at least try to use the charger that best matches their car if it's available. Require that they plug in, or that they document a non-EV in the space before connecting to an over-spec charger.
...or just charge a premium for using the fast chargers. That way you're not you're not checking your phone every 5 minutes to see whether you're racking up additional charges and whether you need to move your car or not.
Edit: yeah feel free to downvote me. I believe in not just the rich being able to fast charge without issue.
What about the competing interest of making charging fast and convenient, which surely would drive EV adoption? Is slowing the energy transition a worthwhile cost in the pursuit of equity?
While these measures will help, the reality is that EA did not invest in enough chargers per location.
If you are correct that they are a utility and should be priced low, then Superchargers would be detrimental to Tesla's stock price and should be spun out as a separate utility company with lower margins. This would create a better EV experience, thus furthering Tesla's goal.
Won't next year's batch of new EV owners be doing the same thing? Or have companies stopped offering the incentive?
This is really annoying and should stop
1. EA does not have enough charger stalls, there is a lot of demand but utilites make it hard to build so they take a lot of time.
2. Some people are new to EVs and have charge anxiety / dont really understand how it works, they will get it in time.
3. Some people have free charging so they charge until 100% because its free, companies introduced these programs to sell cars and as these programs expire (usually 2 or 3 years max after purchase of the vehicle) it will get better.
We are still in the beginning process of adopting this tech and there will be some growing pains but we will get there.
Note: The one thing I can't understand is why Elon is handicapping the supercharger expansion. Tesla has by far the best charging experience and their chargers are packed. Now is the time where they can swoop in and take over the market. They can even spin out supercharging as an independent company and take it public.