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| Public charging points on a street Paris, France - 13 November, 2019: Public charging points in a row on |
While electric cars (EVs) are heralded as the future of transportation, experts believe that Australia must significantly increase its number of charging stations to alleviate the "range anxiety" potential owners experience. While some EV owners can charge their cars at home, many lack this option due to not having a garage or living in an apartment.
As a result, these Australians depend on public charging locations, which are sparse across the country, discouraging others from adopting EVs. Trevor Long, the host of the "Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars" podcast and an EV owner, discussed this issue with Yahoo Finance after taking a road trip around New South Wales to test the country's charging network.
Long found that charging stations were not only scarce but also frequently malfunctioned. This problem is especially concerning in rural Australia, where residents often need to travel long distances.
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| Electric vehicle charging Stock Photos |
Dominique van den Berg, chief executive of Energy Networks Australia, told the Australian Financial Review that EV sales in Australia won't surge like in other parts of the world until there are more charging stations available.
“A third of Australians won’t buy an EV because they’re worried about range anxiety and the lack of public charging,” she said. “Australia is significantly lagging behind in both EV adoption and public charging infrastructure.”
Despite EVs being relatively new, there is still a long way to go before their supporting infrastructure rivals that of petrol cars.
Across Australia, there are roughly 2,500 charging stations. For comparison, there are approximately 6,500 petrol stations, which have several bays to let motorists fill up. For an even bigger comparison, EV drivers in Canada can choose from 7,000 charging locations.
Van den Berg said there is one charging station for every 10 electric cars overseas. However, in Australia, there is one station for 35 cars.
There has been a huge increase in electric vehicle sales in Australia, with approximately 198,000 driving on our roads — two-thirds of which have been purchased since 2022.
The federal government is trying to ease the anxiety of drivers doing lengthy trips. It has committed to building fast chargers every 150 kilometres on national highways.
It will hopefully overcome a sight that has been seen over recent public holidays, where long queues of EVs patiently wait at charging stations for their turn to juice up.