Sign of the times: Queensland petrol station adds EV charging costs to fuel prices

In what is possibly a first for Australia, a petrol station in Queensland has been spotted with a new “electrifying” inclusion on its LED fuel price sign.

The Pacific Fuels service station located in Drayton, a suburb of the city of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, sparked a flurry of attention on various online channels on Sunday after an EV owner posted the image to Facebook.

“This photo is not from somewhere in Europe. It is from Toowoomba, Queensland,” said Paul Jones in the public Facebook group “Electric Vehicles for Australia”. As of Monday morning, that post alone had generated more than 200 comments and 106 shares.

And so it is. Listed on Plugshare, an app that allows EV owners to find charging stations, the Pacific Fuels site states that it has a 50kW DC fast charger managed by Chargefox, available 24 hours a day.

And the cost? 30 cents per kilowatt hour, as stated clearly on the price board. Compared to the cost of fuel – which at this servo tops out at 142.5 cents per litre – it’s also considerably cheaper per kilometre.

And it’s also worth noting using fast chargers such as this one is only usually necessary for road trips – most people charge at home overnight, much like a mobile phone.

It reminds us of what the South Australia government prediction last week that fuel signs of the future won’t be about the price of petrol or diesel, but the cost of charging, fast, medium or slow. See: This is what petrol-free service station signs may look like, courtesy of SA Liberals