Image: Tesla Australia
Australia’s largest EV fast charging site is open for business, with 16 Tesla Supercharger stalls now available at the company’s Albury site – just in time for the Christmas holiday rush.
Each of the stalls at the facility at the Commercial Club in Stanley Street feature the latest V4 Superchargers and have charging speeds of up to 250kW, depending on the make of the car. The site is now live, according to the Tesla App, with 15 of the 16 fast chargers ready to be used by EV drivers.
The V4 chargers provide a longer cable – 2.98 metres compared to 1.98 meters in the V3 series – which will help charge non-Tesla EVs with varying charge port locations, and without getting in the way of other EVs.
The Albury site is one of at least three of that scale planned by Tesla in NSW, and partly funded by the NSW government, which should mean that the facilities will be open to non-Tesla drivers, as are half the Tesla Supercharging sites around the country.
However, The Driven understands that the Albury facility will not be open to non-Tesla cars before the coming holiday season.
A local Tesla and technology enthusiast Jason went out and confirmed that the charging speed of 250 kW was achieved. This equated to 1,579 km/hour of charge being delivered at lower state of charge.
Previously, the largest charging sites across Australia were also Tesla supercharger sites. Some of the recent deployments include:
Multiple other sites with 12 superchargers are also currently under construction in NSW and Victoria.
With EV uptake at an all-time high, the upcoming summer break will be a big test of the charging infrastructure across the nation.
The opening of the Albury site is particularly timing, as the town – and its twin city of Wodonga – was the focus of some of the lengthy queues experienced in the last holiday period. Wodonga has a six-tall Tesla supercharger facility with up 120kW.
Since last Christmas, at least another 43,000 Tesla Model Y and Model 3s, and more than 80,000 EVs in total, have hit Australia’s roads, so the pressure could be on again this holiday season.
The rollout of larger fast-charging sites is essential to ensuring EV uptake is sustained and with more cars on the road, even larger sites will be needed to prevent long queues.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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