EV – Australia’s 3000 EV charging points

Australia’s 3000 EV charging points

With a country that is almost 8 million square kilometres how many charging points are needed for EVs?

The Australian Government has now embraced EVs and is enabling their future use by the release of their Low Emissions Technology Statement 2021, where they specified ‘Enabling Infrastructure’ as a key category. Their plan is to invest in infrastructure that will allow the widespread delivery of low emission energy to the commercial and residential sectors. Currently Australia has just over 3000 EV public charging points to cover 7.692 million square kilometres and of those 2531 are AC standard and 470 are DC supercharge with most located in New South Wales. They are to service the .78 percent of new cars that are EVs. The world average is 4.2 percent, we are lagging well behind even the US has 2.3 percent. Three levels of charging stations are available in Australia.

Level 1/Mode 2: The at-home charging station

This is like plugging in any other electrical device at home, but with a special cable. It uses 10-15 Amp, single-phase power and delivers 1.4kW – 2.4kW. This will ‘top up’ any kilometres used from a small trip (10-20 km) but won’t fully charge your battery. This charging method will also be useful on destination trips if no other charging points are available.

Level 2/Mode 3: Charge while shopping

Using the power equivalent to an oven or dryer, this is a dedicated EV charger, delivering up to 22kW, on a 32 Amp, 3-phase point. It is normally found in public places such as shopping centres where the car can be left for an hour to top up daily usage (40 to 100km) or fully charge overnight.

Level 3/Mode 4: The DC supercharger

The two previous methods use AC power, but this is DC. Designed to be much quicker (up to 40x faster) at charging, it is suitable for fully charging a vehicle rapidly and is a dedicated point at petrol stations, car parks. It will deliver from 25kW to 350kW on a 40–500 Amp, three-phase point and charge around 150km per hour. Generally, the bigger the battery, the more it will cost to charge. The cost of charging publicly varies widely amongst the approximately 18 private charging infrastructure providers available. Prices will fluctuate depending upon demand, but many suppliers offer the first few kilowatts for free. The RAC estimates that costs are approximately 45 to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour maximum, which still makes them cheaper than their combustion engine counterparts. Tesla electric chargers are a different beast though. They are the fastest chargers (called destination chargers) but can only be used on Tesla cars. A 2021 Savvy survey (www.savvy.com.au/73percent-australiansagree-moving-to-electricvehicles-important-to-curb-climatechange) found 17 percent of respondents were most concerned about charging station availability when making an EV purchase. This proves that the accessibility of charging points could be a large restraint to EV market growth in Australia. By the end of 2022, it is estimated that there will be 58 EV models for sale on the Australian market, a rise of 53 percent from 31 models in 2021. Installations of public chargers increased by 23 percent (DC) and 24 percent (AC) from 2020-21 and at present, for every public charger, there are 7.21 EVs in Australia. The biggest hindrance to the growth of the EV market overall in Australia is the lack of charging stations and it is a catch-22 situation. We can’t have more EVs on the road until we have more charging stations, and we can’t have more charging stations unless we have more EVs. Therefore, we are reliant on government policies and funding and the growth that private providers can foresee and are therefore willing to invest upon, to fix the problem. If you have an EV, then it is quite obvious that you need a charging point at home. Public charging stations pose a different challenge as they, unfortunately, aren’t always easy to find and their distribution depends upon the population, state, territory, local council implementation policy and willingness of private providers. A free app for iOS, Android and the internet called PlugShare (www.plugshare.com) allows users to find charging stations in Australia and worldwide, and map new ones. Hopefully soon Google Maps will roll out their EV charging station finder that has been released in the United Kingdom and the United States.