Electric Vehicle Nation Can Australia Support EVs with the Current Infrastructure?

Savvy has just completed a new report on Australian national, state and territory investments in EV charging stations that explores the issues of rollout, availability, and maximum charging times for new electric vehicles, based on Electric Vehicle Council – March 2022 data.

​The piece – Electric Vehicle Nation – Can Australia Support EVs with the Current Infrastructure? — examines what present and future charging infrastructure investments have been made in their state or territory.

Historians have always noted Australia’s suffering from the “tyranny of distance” both internationally and internally. We are remote as a continental island – a country that’s nearly 7.7 million km2 in size – and our major cities much more distant than other developed countries.

For example, the driving distance between Melbourne and Sydney is 878km; the distance between the capitals of New York State (Albany) and adjacent New Jersey (Trenton) is approximately 330km.

The fully electric Nissan Leaf would be able to travel from Albany to Trenton comfortably with a full range of 385km. However, it would need to stop at least twice to go from Melbourne to Sydney.

With petrol stations abundant in Australia, EV drivers may feel they could be left in the lurch. But is it as dire as public perceptions seem?

In this report, we use the Electric Vehicle Council of Australia March 2022 data to answer questions such as, how many public charging stations are there in Australia? How many are planned for the future? Where are they now, and where will they be located? We investigate what’s available for EV owners and prospective owners.

The types of EV charging stations
Electric vehicles – such as fully electric or Plug-in Hybrid Electric vehicles (HEV) – require electric power from the grid to run (although not fully for Hybrids, which run on a mix of electric and petrol.)

EVs require DC power – which is either supplied at a charging station direct or converted from AC to DC by the car’s internal converter. DC charging is the fastest way to charge an electric vehicle.

Typically, one kilowatt (kW) will add one kilometre for every ten minutes of charging.

AC public charging stations fall into the range of about 7kW to 40kW and are usually referred to as “destination charging” stations, allowing cars to be recharged overnight.

DC charging stations are much quicker in comparison and designed for immediate top-ups.

There are two types of DC public charging stations – above 50kW fast charging and below 50kw regular charging.

At 50kW, a vehicle will add 50km of range (on average) for every ten minutes of charge.

The fastest available charging stations in Australia are 350kW “ultra-rapid” facilities, such as those offered by providers like Chargefox, for example. Chargefox provides a theoretical 400km of range in 15 minutes, though these are few and far between. More have been promised by state and federal governments in the coming years.

Even if every DC charging point was capable of 350kW output, the vehicles themselves are limited by what they can accept. Until recently, top-of-the-line EVs in Australia with DC maximums of 110kW to 200kW were considered high. However the latest vehicles, such as Hyundai’s Iconiq 5 and the Kia EV6, have max per hour charge speeds of 350kW.

Fast charging
As of January 2022, there are 293 fast charging locations around Australia. This represents an increase of 85% since August 2020 (157).

Unsurprisingly, the distribution of these stations matches the population density of each respective state.

Regular charging
​As of January 2022, there are 1,580 regular charging stations in Australia. This represents an increase of 29% since August 2020 (1219.)

Read more articles in our August 2022 Issue here.