EV uptake in Sydney’s outer western suburbs has jumped nearly 50 pct in six months

As Australian policy wonks debate the merits of the country’s proposed adoption of tough new vehicle emissions standards, one of the biggest myths around the uptake of electric vehicles has been debunked by one of the network owners responsible for transporting the power to charge them.

Endeavour Energy, which operates the electricity network in Sydney’s greater west, the Blue Mountains, the Southern Highlands, Illawarra and the South Coast of NSW, says the growth of EVs in the outer suburbs is much quicker than that in the wealthy east.

Endeavour’s EV Innovation Manager Danny Thai last week posted some data that shows the average growth in areas of its network has been 45 per cent from August, 2023, to February 24, with many outer suburbs posting far higher growth rates.

EV registrations in Blacktown grew 46% from 1,868 to 2,720 in six months. Over the same period, EV registrations in Penrith grew 59 per cent, Shellharbour 61 per cent and Wollondilly (around Picton) grew a staggering 74 per cent.

Thai says The Hills and Blacktown areas have the most EVs registered in their network and are also growing the fastest.

Of the 42,990 total EVs registered in NSW, 17,567 are registered within Endeavour Energy’s network. Thai says that about 32 per cent of EV owners charge from dedicated wall chargers (level 2) and the remainder from the “humble power-point”, or they use public charging.

Overall EV sales in Australia rose sharply in 2023 with a total of over 87,000 new battery-electric cars making it onto the road.

According to the EV Council at the start of 2024, there were over 180,000 EVs on Australian roads. An additional 4,893 were sold in January and a record 10,011 in February making it highly likely that at the end of March the Australian EV fleet should be over 200,000.