Tesla starts limiting charge to 80% at busy Superchargers to reduce wait times

I agree with electrek; it should be based on how busy the station is. Still it's good to see that if you are routed there by the navigation system that you get what you need to continue the journey. But it sounds as though it would be easy to fake the need for a full charge just by programming a suitable route.

In before a "paid premium" unlock option allowing user's to bypass the limitation, or a lawsuit because someone gets stranded or can't do something because the bloody charger wouldn't let them fully charge.

This is where the full plugin EV supply chain has to wrangle with it's Achilles' heel.

An ICE fuel reserve can be topped up in minutes, and range extended trivially through the usage of fuel containers added as cargo.

Size of tank can be trivially adjusted by changing the characteristics of the pump itself mechanically: I.e. larger hoses, stronger pumps, etc...

Electricity, however, will always be throttled by arcane particulars of the particular battery being charged,

Major limiting factors of the Supercharger network based on configuration, and operating principle would include:

-the capacity of the "Supercharger" to pull more power from the grid (in the case of on-demand offsite power generation)

-to store large amounts of on demand power without losses or excessive hazard (in-the case of periodic "store and forward" generation schemes characterized by periodic stints where the station would essentially heavily charge its own power storage media from the grid, during low grid utilization time to build up enough buffer to handle the demand of the day; this further complicates the charging process by requiring extra attention by grid operators to ensure the grid can handle the additional worst case peak loading should many stations need to charge at the same time; extra care is also necessary by station operators, as a battery failure at the levels of electricity being stored would be catastrophic; this would be the EV equivalent of our current hydrocarbon distribution supply chain)

-To scale power generation and transmission capability on site with power demand in the case of on-site, on demand power generation being feasible. This approach is even less sexy than the norm due to the impacts of NIMBYism, and power generation efficiency generally only being able to be maximized at large size.

Capping at 80% charge, whether one likes it or not, is systemically speaking not delivering on the promise of a delivered substitute for an ICE vehicle with an operating range as described at the dealership, which will likely lead to some lawsuits based on false advertising, and really digging into what it means for legal liability when you are the vehicle manufacture, dealer, and infrastructure operator. If you sell a car advertised as having range X, but limit them to range Y as the main supplier of charging infrastructure, the false-advertising case writes itself.

It also starts getting into the messy gray area where the entire Tesla ecosystem starts looking like a vertically integrated transportation monopoly.

Wooh. That ended up longer than I thought it would, but man, is Tesla a technically "rich" area in terms of food for thought. To have enough time to dig into the numbers, and actually try to get a feel for things...wistful stare.

Seems to be the story of my hobbies recently.