There are some people here acting like there are many drivers who need to supercharge all day every day, and if staying too long, could place their financial futures in jeopardy, or cause a detrimental drop in EV sales due to a fear of an overbearing corporate policy. We are talking about a few bucks, a few times a year, and even then, only if you neglect to some back to your car in a timely fashion. Geez
Considering that only myself and
@Ulmo have been recently active in this thread on the "cons" side of the pros and cons:
I think one thing that makes it so hard for some of us in this thread to understand each other is that there are individually practical ways of looking at this, and then there is the sort of wider social and policy assessing way of looking at this. I have completely ignored the former, while I think your point of you is pretty much based on this, so that is why we are not seeing eye to eye. It is understandable. As for
@Ulmo's comment about financial jeopardy or whatever it was, I think that was in jest...
For me, I am assessing whether or not I think this policy is successful in being user-friendly for the average, reasonable person. It is also based on the notion that punitive fees should not go to average, reasonable users - and that no matter their monetary value, they are still in general disliked by average, reasonable users. That dislike has certain consumer satisfaction issues, no doubt, but that is not really my main point at this stage. I am merely discussing what would be
good policy.
I have made my suggestions on the policy improvement here:
Improving Supercharger Availability $0.40 idle fee #1187
For the vast majority of drivers, a range setting of 100% is not the rate limiting step in getting our cars moved; it is our ultimate destination and busy lives that dictate when we leave. For those few people who want/need to charge to 100%, taking the massive amount of time it takes to fill up, yet still manage to outstay the 5 minute grace period, let them pay the idle fee. Big. Frickin'. Whoop.
I agree, this is true. And IMO this is why this group should not face punitive idle charges, nor should it have to resort to using a detrimental charge percentage to avoid those punitive idle charges when using the system reasonably. We should not be recommending charging to 100% and then relying on people to remember to stop it in time, that's just a bad recommendation. Better IMO would be to make the policy such that nobody who reasonably uses the system ever gets punitive idle charges (which a $0.40/min is) for reasonable use.
You seem to suggest everyone should just set their charging to 100% and even if they still fail to be back within 5 minutes on completion (a time not known beforehand that can change, but granted easier to target due to 100%'s slow taper) then they deserve the fee. I think this argument falls flat on its face the moment the suggestion is made that charging should ever be set to 100% when not needed for range purposes... It is just a testament to the issue with this policy that such a bad recommendation needs to be made.
Were this any other thread, we would be not recommending moving the charge percentage slider to 100%. And that's IMO what a good and reasonable idle charge policy should support as well. We should be building a good and reasonable charging etiquette from all angles that the average, reasonable user can successfully use - this includes good EV maintenance etiquette IMO...
As far as changing the grace period, I would like to share a test I used to give to my Psych patients many years ago:
If all the crime on a subway occurs in the most rear car of the train, would removing that car result in a reduction of crime? It is amazing how many people answered yes.
Apples and oranges. Removing the last car of a train is not possible. However, changing the grace is actually very much possible. But I do grant you there is a comparable class of users in the idle charge scenario too, comparable to the last train car, so let me explain what I mean.
The thing is, (in my hypothesis at least) the failure to reach the charging car within 5 minutes of completion is
not simply based on the notion that people will be late, no matter the deadline (some will, of course) - as would simply be the case with the rear most train car scenario (there will always be a rear most train car on a train).
What actually IMO makes many of them late is the fact that the deadline is ever-changing and that even the portion of people who would be on time, were the deadline constant, will have a hard time targeting an ever-changing deadline without sufficient grace.
Think of it this way - and please don't get bogged down on the illustrative numbers I used, hopefully the idea comes through though:
1) If we ask 100 people to come to a place at 12 o'clock (let's assume accurate watches), say, 70 of them will be there on time. Additional 10 will be there within 5 minutes. The last 20 is always late - the "last car of the train" - those we can't help, so for the moment let's forget about them. I agree any deadline will always have someone late.
2) If we now instead ask people to come to a place at an unknown time X (alternating between, say, 45-90 minutes from now), the number of people who will be there on time or within 5 minutes will be, say, 50. However, within 15-30 minutes, say, 30 more people will be there (not always the same people, I would expect the 50 and 30 groups to alternate between them). The last 20 will always be late and those people are beyond hope often.
This is the math that I'm thinking when suggesting improvements to the policy. It is those "30" people (just a made-up figure for illustrative purposes) that I think a better policy can genuinely help operate the system within parameters. Returning at an unknown time is hard and a reasonable grace is simply a reasonable thing to do when targeting an unpredictable time. Call it tolerance, even manfuacturers have them when aiming precisely is difficult. Even now Tesla does have a grace: 5 minutes. Talk (or even studying) of what grace is best and most reasonable seems certainly fair. I am of the opinion that the grace is too low to be reasonable.
The last "20" people we can't help anyway, but they are not reasonable users and they can pay. They are the last train car.
Finally, I know following the app (assuming cell service, a charged phone and app usage) or staying in the car can help in finding out what the unknown time might be. However, the estimates are bad/changing and accuracy requires constant monitoring as it can change, limiting its value for the whole group. It will of course help many people.
Even if you disagree with me on a reasonable grace (e.g. you think 5 minutes is reasonable and need not be changed), I should think this logic at least makes sense to you guys that a certain grace period is humanely reasonable given an unknown ending time? Yes?
