My point is that any situation that involves more human intervention too function for everyone is a step backwards, even if it's an electronic queue.
That's a very broad statement that I don't agree with, at least if you really mean the word any that I've highlighted. Our society is chock full of examples where this is not the case. Okay, maybe in many scenarios it's a two steps forward, one step back kind of thing, because it does technically require additional human interaction, but in most cases the benefit outweighs the cost. The question that must be asked is whether the benefits of implementing a digital queue outweigh the additional costs of having to look at your screen to see what stall to pull into (which I think you have to admit is not a huge cost). Even something like idle fee charges at busy stations requires about the same amount of human interaction (reading a notification or looking at your app to see when it's time to move your car and then actually moving it).
And I know your point may be that it requires
everyone to use it. Well, is this not the case for a physical queue as well? If there is a physical line of cars, it may not be hard to position yourself in line, but even then you need to be ready to take action and move your car to the next open stall once it opens up. You can't just arrive at the site and pull into a stall that someone is leaving without ascertaining whether a queue exists (in most sites I've been to the layout is not amenable to a physical line, so you may even have to get out of your car and ask around whether other people are in the queue or not). Besides, not
everyone does need to use it. If you want to roll the dice and hope you roll up to an empty site, sure, just plug in. The queue would only be implemented if the site was full (or half full for a V2 site, and even then it wouldn't be a fixed queue, but rather just a recommendation for which stall to plug into for optimal speed). But if you do show up at a full site without signaling your intent in advance, you are automatically asked if you want to join the queue, just as if you had arrived at a site with a physical line: you go to the end of the line (whether an actual line, or a collection of cars parked in random spots waiting that you must communicate with the other drivers to figure out who is ahead of you). The primary difference here is that instead of looking for a stall to empty up and noticing that you are next, you would have to look at your car or app to figure out when it was your turn and which stall to use.
Someone signs up for the queue nearby, but they stay for extra brunch or extra shopping. Are they constantly given that 5-10 min grace period because the navigation says they're so close?
That's an implementation detail, but I would say no, one and done. You're out of the queue (or at least occupy the "second to next" position) until you confirm on your screen/app that you are ready to charge. In fact, another possible implementation would be to require confirmation upon arrival that you are ready to charge when you obtain the "next" position and if you do not confirm, the "next" slot is given to the cars behind you until you do. Oh I know, this is more interaction required.
When grandma Gladys goes there to fill up and there are lines, how frustrating will that be for her?
Pretty sure if grandma drives an EV that she has at least a little familiarity with how the car and charging works. I mean she had to know enough to find the charging station using either the car or an app, didn't she? Besides, how would grandma figure out a physical queue, especially at those sites where the cars don't necessarily form a physical line? Do you think she can figure that out, but not a message on her screen that tells her that she is 3rd in line and then eventually tells her to pull into stall 2B? Sure, there may be a slight learning curve the first time she tries to plug into a site and it won't charge, and chances are the person who is actually authorized to use that stall will be on hand to explain it to her.
When someone who doesn't queue up rolls in a plugs in, will they be able to skip or will they be locked out? How frustrating will that be for that jerk?
No, of course they will be locked out. That's the basic functionality of the queue. How frustrating will it be? Probably quite frustrating. If they intentionally tried to cut the line, then that's a good thing that they get frustrated. This is better than a line cutter at a physical queue where either everyone behind them has to just deal with these jerks, or they need to confront the jerk and then who knows what kind of violence may ensue.
Computering to manage all those factors for millions of vehicles a day across multiple automaker apps?
You are over-complicating the system here. The system doesn't need to manage millions of vehicles and all charging stations. Each network (e.g. Supercharger network) needs to manage a queue for each site, and only the cars actively navigating to that site, not ALL cars. Super easy today with the the Supercharger network, as all the necessary functionality could be built into the car's nav system itself. When you navigate to a Supercharger, it adds you to the queue for that site. Introducing other makes of vehicles does make it more complicated because those users (at least today) would need to use the Tesla app to indicate their intent to charge, rather than relying on their in-car nav.
At least initially each network would have their own app that would be used in a similar fashion, but hey, if we are talking about designing an optimal system for the future, why wouldn't it be possible to standardize a communication protocol that in-car systems could use to implement this functionality seamlessly? Yes, now we are getting into the "multiple automaker apps" territory, but if it's standardized (like Plug & Charge for example) it makes the task easier.
You never have to do any of that using petrol, and you shouldn't have to here.
Again, petrol is a different beast. Petrol stations are usually (although not always) situated such that a physical line is evident (but even then, you may get in the "wrong" lane and have to wait an excessive amount of time; and the throughput for a given pump is usually on the order of one car every five minutes. With a charging station, at least the way they are laid out, you don't line up behind a particular stall and then wait perhaps 45-50 minutes for that car to leave. No, you have to join a queue for the entire site. That's already much different than how a petrol station queue works. Second, if you showed up at a petrol station and it looked like the lines were so long that you'd have to wait for 45 minutes, you'd probably just go to a different station across the street. That's not going to be an option for fastchargers for years to come. How much better to be able to signal your intent to visit a given station while en route and book a slot approximately at the same time as you arrive? If there WERE 45 minute lines at petrol stations and there were no other options to fuel up nearby, I can guarantee that the public would be clamoring for this kind of solution.
Physical queue is completely self-explanatory, free, easily understood by everyone immediately, easily navigated, intuitive, zero maintenance, requires zero human intervention, will have zero non-use time (waiting for people to return and drive back to charger), etc. etc. ...and if they're expanding and building new chargers, it'll be absolutely unnecessary as people will be rerouted to other SCs anyway. The more I think about it, the worse idea I think it is.
No, they are not always self-explanatory & understood by everyone. As I've said, many times to layouts are not conducive to physical lines. Parking is limited, so you park where you can around the property, which means everyone has to go around talking to everyone else that they see at the site to figure out who is at the end of the queue so they know who to follow. That's not zero human intervention. And maybe that's easy with Teslas because the cars all look similar, but what when we start seeing more and more brands that we may not even recognize? And how do we tell the difference between an EV that just happens to be parked at the site but not in need of a charge? Or a car that has no passengers that IS in the queue but currently empty because they know they have at least 15 minutes and so have gone inside to use the restroom and grab a snack? And how about a site that does allow for a physical line of cars...now you need to sit in your car for the entire wait to move it forward every few minutes. That too requires excessive human intervention that a digital queue could eliminate, to the benefit of users. Not to mention avoiding confrontations, which unfortunately are starting to get violent, because someone cuts the line either intentionally or unintentionally.
With respect to whoever mentioned it, implementing a queue so you can drop someone off at a bathroom while you wait (or things like that) is such a ridiculous, beyond first world problem. It's too much of an inconvenience to go to the bathroom first, then get in line? Or just drop someone off and have them walk back to you while you wait in line? The idea of apps to order food while you charge is good because that only involves you. An electronic queue in theory would involve everyone which is no good.
Maybe it is a first world problem. But it is real. Yes, I want to take more advantage of the time spent either waiting in the queue or charging and using the restroom/getting something to eat in parallel, not serial. If I'm on a 15 hour road trip, I'd prefer not to have my 70 minutes of estimated charging time increase to 120 because I get stuck in a physical line (with no way to book a slot in advance) and then when I get there I can't immediately join the queue because I really need to use the restroom first, pushing me back an additional 5-10 minutes that I could have been using "productively" by keeping my place in line. People already have a hard enough time with the fact that they think traveling in an EV is going to unnecessarily increase their trip times. If we can't offer a solution to help ease that, there are going to be plenty of frustrated people if sites get busy.
