Australia is not ready for Electric Cars – not regional Australia that’s for sure

This ladies and gentlemen, is a cautionary tale – don’t drive an electric car to the country – unless you’re into planning and logistics.

And, this one is for the haters and the lovers of EVs – sadly, the facts can’t hide behind the joys of Electric Driving. But – this article and opinion is related to long distance regional driving, not city ownership at all!

Look, I’ve done many thousands of kilometers driving Australia’s country roads and highways in Electric Cars – all makes, models and ranges. I’ve driven a Porsche from Melbourne to Sydney, A Tesla from Brisbane to Adelaide, my own and many other regular EV’s from Sydney to Tamworth and Sydney to Young and back.

Heck, I’ve even driven an Electric Ford Transit Van almost 1,000km.

This weekend just gone, I took a road trip to my home-town of Griffith for my Nephew’s 21st birthday out at Lake Wyangan. I chose to drive my full-electric Cupra Born, It’s done some road trips before. No Drama.

I left Friday, hoping to return on Sunday.

I left with 80% charge, knowing full well there were chargers at Pheasants Nest, Marulan, Goulburn and Yass before the turn-off to Young, and one at Young.

I Also knew there was a Charger in Griffith and a Tesla Supercharger too which was open to all.

Feeling pretty good, I began the drive.

I stopped at the Ampol Pheasants Nest for a cheeky snack and drink – shoutout to the lovely ladies there who recognised me and said hi! I actually couldn’t get the charge started in the Ampol App – something that happened to me once before here, but I didn’t care, I was only going to be 10 minutes and I was distracted by the all-electric Windrose Prime Mover there (more on That in Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars soon)

Onwards, I was too busy singing to see the BP Marulan turn off so headed straight for the Tesla Supercharger in Yass. Sydney to Young is a drive I could do with just a “splash and dash”, but knowing how fast the Superchargers are – and knowing the NRMA charger in Young is 50kW, I opted to get a decent charge and took it to 80-90%.

Arriving in Young, I plugged in, charged, went to the shops and got the things I needed, came back, fully charged headed to mums for the night.

Setting off to Griffith, I knew because we were coming back via a stop in Leeton, I should be at 100% when I left, and definitely wanted to fully charge in Griffith too.

So we had a great drive, a great day, and with time to pass in the afternoon, chilled out at the Tesla Supercharger in Griffith to get back to 100%. We drove to Leeton, lovely dinner with great people, then home to Young.

The next morning, the plan was to charge and head home.

I had I think 20% battery or a bit more, and an estimated range of something like 107km.

Now, to be clear, the Yass Tesla Supercharger is a 99km drive from Young, but I have always said I’m not going to “drive for range” I’m going to drive like I like to, and that’s at the speed limit or there abouts:)

So I wanted to have more than that.

Opened the NRMA App – Young Charger OFFLINE.

PANIC SET IN.

Idiot Trevor didn’t bring his Granny (Trickle) Charger – having cleared the car out to cart magazines around last week – so I had no backup plan. None.

Enter the PLUGSHARE app and I checked the NRMA Young Charger. A recent checkin said “Still works even though App offline”. I RUSHED there, parked, and plugged in – ripper!

Went and got some Cherries with Mum, washed her car at the Autowash, and went back to the car.

With 40% battery I was a shoe-in to get to Yass.

And that I did.

In my mind, I was going to do “quick charges” all day, to prove that you could jump out for a toilet break, coffee, drink or whatever – and that would be fine.

Fortunately, the public toilets in Yass were a few blocks away, so I was gone for exactly 20 minutes and went from 44% to 79% battery. Home was now 292km away and I had some 300+km of range.

Yes, I could likely make it home, but – what if I didn’t have enough, what if I lived on the central coast.

So to continue my curiosity on the drive, I decided to stop at Marulan, Goulburn, Suttons Forrest and Pheasants Nest to check out the situations there.

Thank GOODNESS I had enough to get home, because otherwise, I would have been stuck waiting, and waiting.

Firstly at Goulburn, a new Chargefox location at KFC – looks good.

But neither Telstra 5G or Vodafone 4G could get enough data to engage the charger. Move on.

Went to the Chargefox location at the old Maccas on the North side of town, and there were four cars in, using the four bays.

Onward to Marulan.

One car using the one plug, and he was at 35% so I wasn’t hanging around.

Drove into the Maccas at Suttons Forrest, I knew there were four Evie chargers there. Two of them in use, two of them not working – red light – out of order.

I knew I wanted some “peace of mind” charge. So I waited. I Pulled up into an out of order bay, and the kind couple in the Red MG ZS EV got to 85% and disconnected before leaving. I could then get a bit of extra and be on my way.

Up the highway at Pheasants Nest, the stunning new Ampol had four bays, all occupied with others in waiting.

I stayed 25 minutes to do a radio show on the phone, and none of them moved in that time, so imagine waiting even longer!

And with that, I drove home, with 30% left as I drove into the Driveway.

Yes, I made it with ease, but – at every step of the way it could have gone much much worse.

Australia has a problem with “Plugs” not “Sites”.

There’s no issue getting from one site to another, there’s a capacity issue at the sites.

People don’t want to wait – people shouldn’t have to wait!

My family would have cursed the day I purchased an EV if they were with me. I was enjoying the John Farnham Autobiography Audio Book so had no issues being in the car. But most people just want to get where they are going.

From my observations this weekend and over many years, there’s some real issues with the planning and roll-out of this “EV Charging Network”.

We need :

• WiFi at all sites – so no one has app connectivity problems
• Tap and Go Credit Card payments on all “plugs” so apps aren’t even needed – sure, charge more, but make it EASY to charge, not needing to rely on smartphone apps and connectivity.
• More Plugs, MANY MORE – we need likely triple the amount we have now.
• Tesla need to open their network to all, but I get it, they do that in a way that protects their network for their drivers. I am grateful for the Yass and Griffith Options nonetheless.
• Facilities – Charging locations need bins, it’s the basics folks.
• Mapping – we need Waze, Google or Apple to step up and rival what Tesla has in their cars. There is no in-car route planning for a non-Tesla that allows you to get estimates on when and where you need to stop. I don’t care if I have to manually input my range, consumption and such figured to help with this – just make it happen!
• And we need a single app that connects it all. Plugshare is the reddit of EV charging. A very niche system, great for nerds, but it’s not good enough to really plan a trip on (this could easily be merged into the mapping if done right)

Right now, Tesla is laughing. They have nailed these things in their cars, and their sites. Where they have 12 bays for charging, non-Tesla networks have 1, 2 MAYBE 4.

This is an industry problem, not a Government problem – but something has to be done – we don’t appear to be planning for the long term, or the short term frankly.

So there you go haters, some great fodder for your next narky argument. For the EV owners and lovers, It’s a cautionary tale – that’s all.