Congratulations. You’ve done it. The keys are in your hand, the car is on the driveway – you bought an Electric Car! And now you’ve got about a thousand EV questions.

In some ways, it’s just another car. But, the reality is you’ll never need to go to a petrol station again, and the habit of the weekly “fill” needs to go out the door. So relax, sit back and let the two blokes run you through a few tips and tricks to put you at ease – and keep you charged:P)

Your First 24 Hours

The very first thing to do when you get home is plug in. It sounds obvious but it matters more than you think, because plugging in on day one sets the habit. Every day, car comes home, goes on charge. That’s the mindset.

When you do plug in for the first time, the car’s screens will light up and show you the charging interface. This is the moment to check your charge limit. Most cars will let you set a target percentage, our advice is to set it at 80 per cent for daily use and only go to 100 per cent when you’re heading on a long trip.

The reason isn’t battery health – modern battery technology has improved significantly and many manufacturers will tell you that charging to 100 per cent is fine. The real reason is time. That last 20 per cent takes a disproportionately long time because of how fast charging works. You’ll understand this viscerally the first time you sit at a public charger and watch the speed taper off above 80 per cent.

While you’re at it, connect the car to your home Wi-Fi if it supports it. When the car is sitting in your driveway on your network, over-the-air software updates will download automatically. On some cars, Wi-Fi connectivity also enables remote access through the manufacturer’s app – which brings us to the next thing to do on day one.

Download the app for your car (almost all have one!) Create an account, log in, and have a poke around. You’ll likely be able to lock and unlock the doors remotely, set departure times, pre-condition the cabin before you leave in the morning, and get notifications about charging. On a hot day, you can turn the aircon on ten minutes before you walk out to the car. It’s one of those small things that makes EV ownership genuinely better than what you had before.

One more first-day tip: don’t panic about the range estimate. That number will change constantly – day to day, season to season. Some cars let you toggle between a fixed range based on the manufacturer’s rated figure and a dynamic range based on your actual recent driving patterns. If your car has that option, dynamic is more useful once it has a week or two of your driving to learn from. My Kia EV9 is rated at around 512 kilometres but regularly shows more than that after a stretch of city driving because the car has learned that’s how it’s being used. The number will settle in. Give it a few weeks.

Charging – The Stuff Nobody Explains at Handover

This is the area where new owners have the most questions, and it’s also the area where dealers do the worst job of explaining things at handover. Critically, Everyone charges differently, at different times, in different situations. There’s a lot to know.

At home: the granny charger vs a wallbox

Almost every electric car comes with what’s called a granny charger (Trickle Charger). It looks like a chunky power brick on one end – that’s the plug that goes into the car – and at the other end it’s just a standard Australian power point. Plug it into the wall, plug it into the car, done.

This is the slowest way to charge an EV, running at around 2 to 3 kilowatts. If you come home at 18 per cent battery and want to get to 80 per cent overnight, It might not even make it. That sounds alarming until you remember that the average Australian drives less than 40 kilometres a day. If you’re doing that, a granny charger overnight will top up everything you used during the day and then some. You can absolutely use a granny charger for the life of the car. There is nothing wrong with it.

But if you’re doing more driving, and need that top up every day, the next step up is an electrician installed wall-charger – a dedicated home charging unit. There’s no power point involved; it’s just the cable that connects directly to your car. Brands like Wallbox and Zappi are well regarded, and you can also find options at Bunnings. Speeds typically range from 7 kilowatts up to 22 kilowatts, though most cars in Australia max out at 11 kilowatts on AC charging. A wallbox makes sense if you drive more than the average distance each day, if you have two EVs in the household, or if you just want the flexibility of a full charge overnight every time.

On the road: public charging

When you’re heading somewhere beyond your daily range, you’ll need to use a public charger. The important thing to understand is that public charging is not like fuel stops – you don’t need to start from empty and fill to full. You take what you need to get to your next stop.

Public chargers vary enormously in speed. A charger that looks like a fast charger might only deliver 50 kilowatts, while others deliver 150 kilowatts or more. That difference matters: 150 kilowatts will add range far quicker than one running at a speed of 50 kilowatts. You’ll learn which chargers on your regular routes are the quick ones. You can also find this out in advance in the apps for any charging network.

On plug types: almost every electric car sold in Australia today uses CCS (Combined Charging System) as the standard DC fast charging connector. The exception is older Nissan Leafs, which use CHAdeMO. You may still come across a single charger unit with two plugs – one CCS and one CHAdeMO – and if someone is already using one of them, the other might not be compatible with your car. Worth checking on the map before you commit to a stop.

Some chargers have a cable permanently attached. Others are just a socket – you need to bring your own cable. Most cars come with a granny charger cable, and many also include a public charging cable. If yours only came with one, it’s worth buying the other. I strongly advise you carry both in the car at all times.

The 80 per cent rule at public chargers

The same 80 per cent principle that applies at home applies at public chargers – but here it’s also about etiquette. Above 80 per cent, charging slows considerably. If you only need 80 per cent to reach your destination, there’s no reason to sit there taking a charger spot while the last 20 per cent trickles in. Getting from 40 to 80 per cent on a road trip stop might take 15 minutes. Getting from 40 to 100 per cent could take another 35 minutes on top of that! The extra 20 per cent costs you far more time and another charger isn’t available for the driver behind you.

Take what you need. If you get there and no one’s waiting, sure, keep going. But if someone else needs the charger, call it at 80 and move on.

There’s also an idle fee at some charging stations – a penalty charge for leaving your car plugged in after it’s finished. The networks introduced this specifically to encourage people to move their car once charging is done. It’s a reasonable policy. Clear the bay for the next person.

Apps to download before your first road trip

Set up your charging apps before you need them – this should be done in week one of ownership! Not at the moment you’re standing at a charger trying to create an account with a phone possibly on low mobile service. The core ones for Australia:

  • NRMA,
  • Chargefox,
  • BP,
  • Ampol,
  • Evie, and
  • Tesla (even if you don’t drive a Tesla – they’ve opened huge parts of their Supercharger network).

Download them, log in, and add your payment details.

For finding chargers, the single best tool is PlugShare. It’s a community-mapped app that shows every charger in any area and – critically – shows you whether other users have successfully charged there recently. If the last three check-ins are failures and there’s no successful charge recorded since, think twice about relying on it.

One more tip: some networks, including Chargefox and Evie, support a tap-and-go card – it’s not actually anything special, but a single card can be configured to work on several apps. Best advice is to sign up and join the Australian Electric Vehicle Association and get a card from them.

A Tesla, and many EVs on most EVIE network chargers will also offer auto-charge, where the charger recognises your car and starts automatically. It doesn’t work on all vehicles, but it’s excellent when it does.

Don’t wait for your first long road trip to try a public charger. Go to the Woolies car park. Go for a coffee somewhere that has a charger. Do it once in a low-pressure situation and it will never feel daunting again.

Driving Differently – And Why It’s Better

Quiet takes some getting used to

One important realisation you may need to make is that pedestrians cannot hear you coming as easily in an EV. In shopping centre car parks especially, people step out without looking because they don’t register that a car is there. Tooting the horn feels aggressive in that situation, so the adjustment is simply to be more watchful than you used to be.

One-pedal driving

Not every car has it, but if yours does, it’s worth learning. The concept: when you lift off the accelerator, the car slows aggressively through regenerative braking and comes to a complete stop, or close to it. You’re only using the brake pedal for emergencies and the occasional situation where you need to stop faster than regen alone can manage.

I like to use the Scalextric analogy – release the trigger on a Scalextric car and the car stops. Same idea. It takes getting used to, and passengers will feel it more than the driver. For a first-timer, I recommend setting regenerative braking to its lowest level – just to make the car feel familiar – and working up from there as you get comfortable.

In Hyundai and Kia vehicles and many others, regenerative braking has levels 1, 2, and 3, with level 4 being the full one-pedal mode. The paddles behind the steering wheel that used to be for gear changes now control regen level on the fly.

The payoff: your brake pads last dramatically longer because the car is doing most of its slowing through the electric motors.

The energy goes back in

Regenerative braking converts the kinetic energy of slowing down back into electricity that goes into the battery. Drive down a long hill and you can actually battery power. Sydney to Bathurst, you might use 60 per cent of your battery on the way there. On the way back, going mostly downhill, you will use far less!

Instant torque is real

Every EV has instant torque from a standstill. In performance models, 0-100 in under 3 seconds is achievable. But even a family SUV will get off the mark noticeably quicker than the equivalent petrol car. Be aware of your right foot, particularly in the early weeks.

Highway driving uses more range than city driving

This is the opposite of a petrol car. An EV is most efficient in stop-start city traffic, where regenerative braking is constantly feeding energy back. At 110 km/h on the freeway, the motor is working constantly with no opportunity to recover energy. A car with a rated 500 kilometres of range might only do 400 on a sustained freeway run.

Slowing down makes a meaningful difference. Sitting at 100 instead of 110 can add noticeable range. It’s why you sometimes see Teslas sitting in the left lane at 90 – the owner has done the maths and decided the ten minutes saved isn’t worth the range cost.

Weather affects range

Cold weather in particular reduces EV range, sometimes significantly. I once took a Hyundai Ioniq to Bathurst on a cold, snowy day. The rated range was 196 kilometres. The drive was 190. The car didn’t make it – falling 25 kilometres short because of the cold and the climb. Factors: a cold battery loses capacity, and climbing uses more energy than flat driving. Your car will show lower range on cold mornings and higher range on mild days. Factor this in when planning winter road trips.

Looking After Your EV

Servicing is different – but not eliminated

An EV has no oil to change, no timing belt, no exhaust system, no spark plugs. The service list is shorter. It’s more likely to be on an annual basis than a kilometre-based schedule.

Worth asking before you buy: what does an annual service actually cost? If the saving on petrol is being offset by higher service costs, that’s relevant to your decision.

Brakes last much longer

Thanks to regenerative braking doing most of the slowing, the physical brakes on an EV see far less use than on a petrol car. They still need to be checked, and they can still corrode if you don’t use them enough – particularly the rear brakes. But in practice, my service checks have found his brakes in consistently great condition.

Tyres: check more often, run slightly higher pressure

EVs are heavier than equivalent petrol cars because the battery pack runs the length of the floor. That extra weight, combined with the instant torque, means tyres wear faster. The recommended approach: inflate tyres slightly above the standard recommended pressure – a couple of PSI higher – to prevent the tyre from loading the sidewall edge and wearing prematurely. Check pressures more regularly than you used to.

The 12-volt battery still exists

This catches a lot of new EV owners off guard. Your car has two batteries: the large high-voltage pack that drives the car, and a standard 12-volt battery that powers the lights, the interior electronics, the door locks, and all the systems that don’t need high voltage. These are completely separate systems – you cannot use the main battery to jump-start the 12-volt if it goes flat.

The 12-volt can go flat if you leave lights on, or if accessories like a dashcam are drawing from it while the car is parked. Some cars, including certain Kia models, have had software-related 12-volt drain issues. If your car is showing a 12-volt warning, usually a single drive is enough to top it up. But it’s worth having a portable jump starter at home – a CTEK or similar – just as you would have had with a petrol car.

Software updates

Your car will receive over-the-air updates. Do them. As Stephen Fenech often tells me, he was told early that “Today is the worst your car will ever be.” He was right. Updates improve efficiency, add features, fix bugs, and in some cases meaningfully change the way the car drives. Connect to home Wi-Fi so they happen automatically. Treat them the same way you treat phone updates – mildly annoying, but worth it.

The Mindset Shift

The biggest adjustment isn’t technical. It’s psychological.

With a petrol car, you run the tank down and then fill it at a service station. You’re reactive – you respond to a low fuel warning. With an EV, the approach flips completely. You top up whenever you can. You come home and plug in, even if you’ve only used 20 per cent. The car charges overnight and you leave in the morning full.

Think of it like your phone. You don’t let the battery die and then spend an hour charging it from empty. You put it on charge when you go to sleep and it’s ready in the morning.

You almost never need a fast charger for daily life

If you’re doing normal daily driving – commuting, school runs, shopping, whatever it is – and you’re plugging in at home every night, you will almost never need to stop at a public charger. The granny charger will handle it. Public fast charging is for road trips. That’s it.

Of course this all assumes you have off-street parking. Very different if you don’t, so you might want to look at chargers that fit into your daily life – like when you’re shopping.

Range anxiety is real but temporary

Simply put, Range anxiety fades. The more you drive the car, the more you understand its actual behaviour in real conditions. After a couple of road trips where you’ve planned the charging stops and they’ve worked, the anxiety largely goes away. You start to know your car’s real-world range the way you used to know your petrol car’s – intuitively, without thinking about it.

One thing that helps: if you drive past a charger and it’s in use, there is almost always another one within 50-150 kilometres. There nearly always is. Infrastructure has improved enormously in Australia over the last few years and keeps getting better.

The biggest concern for charging is in the peak times, like school holidays at charging locations where there is just one or two connections. Avoid these at all costs.

Shop around on electricity plans

Once you’ve settled into EV ownership, look at your electricity plan. Some providers, like OVO Energy, offer free electricity during certain windows – Some offer free power between 11am and 2pm and very cheap overnight rates between midnight and 6am, which gets the cost of a full charge down to around $8. If you charge overnight, that matters. You don’t need solar to benefit from an EV, but a time-of-use plan can make a real difference.

Don’t be afraid of the Tesla Supercharger network

Whatever your view of the brand or its founder, the Tesla Supercharger network is the best EV charging infrastructure in Australia. More bays, more locations, faster speeds, more reliable. Refusing to use it because of how you feel about Tesla is like refusing to use BP or Shell petrol stations because you don’t like the company. Use the best infrastructure available.

Also, if you think you’re going to use it a lot, join their monthly membership program, a $10 fee and you get cheaper charging rates.

Join the community

The Facebook groups for your specific car are genuinely useful. You’ll learn things about your car’s quirks and capabilities that you’d never find in the manual. You’ll also find people who’ve already had the problem you’re having and figured out the solution. There’s some complaining, as with any online community, but the signal is worth it. The PlugShare community is worth contributing to as well – check in when you successfully charge somewhere, report faults when you find them, and you’re making the experience better for every other EV driver on that route.

At charging stations, especially on road trips, talk to other owners. You might learn more from those conversations than from any documentation.

And if you want to talk it through with people who’ve been doing this for years – send a text to 0477 657 657. That’s what Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars is there for.

The Moment You’ll Know

For me, it was a sunny December day, car in the driveway, panels generating power, car charging – and the realisation that he was driving for free. That was it.

Your moment will come. It might be the first time you test drive the car. It might be the first road trip where the charging all works exactly as planned and you arrive without drama. It might be the morning you look at your electricity bill and realise what you’d have spent on fuel.

After a while it won’t feel like an EV. It’ll just feel like your car.

And that’s when you know.

Subscribe and listen to Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars : hosted by Trevor Long (EFTM.com) and Stephen Fenech (TechGuide.com.au). New episodes weekly on all major podcast platforms and YouTube – Got a question about your new EV? Text 0477 657 657.