At public electric vehicle charging stations, do you have to stay by your car?

No. Someone I used to work with would use a free public charging station, walk home and then walk back in the morning to get his car.

You can charge your car while shopping, or working out at the gym, or while you’re at work. There is no “proximity rule”.

The cars are well designned so that once fully charged, the charging process ceases.

And, if someone comes along and disconnects you, well, you won’t be fully charged. But that’s about all.

No but you might want to if you are charging your car on a trip or in a high crime area.

In the case of Teslas, a stranger can’t pull out the plug because it gets locked into place. There’s an idle fee on Superchargers though. Once you’ve charged to full, you’ll be charged an idle fee of $0.50/minute if the station is 50% full. If it’s 100% full the idle fee is double. You do get a 5-minute grace period though, and your phone app will send you a notification when charging is complete.

I think you see a lot of people waiting around is because charging goes pretty fast. They may want to stretch their legs, or they’re using the car’s infotainment system to pass the time. I usually run into a nearby restaurant to grab some food to go and eat in the car.

In Reno, there is an entire section of a parking structure designated for recharging electric vehicles. This is at a casono, and you KNOW they want people inside.
My daughter has a Volt, and she says it takes an hour to charge. It seems unreasonable to expect people standing by their car for that long.

The cable locks into the charging port on the car so you can’t unplug the car without the key (at least in my experience)

If a car was left too long and others wanted to use the station, traffic control officers could surely unlock the plug and tow the car.