I have long ago said that Elon's promise of free supercharging for life was a bad idea and knew that these sorts of issues would inevitably surface.
It just isn't scalable in the long term because people go to great lengths to take advantage of things they think are free.
It's even worse if they think about an up-front cost and now they want to use it as much as possible to make it "worth it"
For most of these people, it's not a waste of time because they are reading email, talking on the phone, or playing candy crush. Why not get free juice while doing that?
For some of them, they are going shopping or the gym or whatever. Given the placement of some superchargers, that is actually desired behavior.
Slowing the charge rate is totally self defeating, because it won't get those people out of there any faster, and in fact keeps them there longer.
The only way to get the cheapos out of the supercharger is to make it more expensive than charging at home/work. Then only the ones who really need it will use it.
I'm ok with locals who don't have a garage using the supercharger as their primary source, but they should pay a reasonable per-kWh or per-minute charge.
Same goes with livery and other commercial vehicles - they should pay for it.
BUT, we have Elon's promise standing in the way.
"Charging for time not charging" would (technically) not violate the promise, and help keep the cars moving along after they are done charging.
If someone is cheap enough to use the local superchargers all the time, paying for parking time will hurt and they aren't likely to take the attitude of "I'm paying for it so I'm staying here all day!"
Otherwise, yeah Tesla has to keep building 'em.
Here is a very simple solution, that I propose for progressive billing:
- Give owners, many, multiple educational warnings. Accept special situations, and give two more warnings before starting to bill.
- First hour free, even after going to Bill mode.
- Second hour $5.
- Third hour and beyond, $50 per hour.
That gives many chances and even when an owner has been put in the "Bill" mode, the first hour is free and the second hour reasonable. Once in the "Bill" mode, going into the second hour is annoying, and going into the third hour and beyond will get most folks attention.