Australia Tests Free Afternoon Power to Drive EV Adoption

South Australia is rolling out a three-hour daily window of free electricity—a subsidy mechanism that bypasses price signals and uses time-based scarcity to shape behavior. This moves beyond typical EV incentives (tax credits, rebates, charger networks) into direct grid management: making renewable surplus periods so attractive that mass behavioral coordination becomes profitable. If it works, similar "free-but-constrained" programs could emerge from other grids with high renewable penetration struggling to manage afternoon overgeneration.