The fast charger failures and gaps on main coastal route are not acceptable

To the Electric Vehicle Council

I am an EV owner and have had my BYD Atto 3 since March 2023. I live at Central Tilba on the Far South Coast of NSW, and have done several trips to Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

On a recent trip to Melbourne the unreliability of the charging infrastructure made the trip difficult. It is critical on this trip to charge at Cann River where there is a 50kW Tritium charger installed through the East Gippsland Shire Council and maintained through a contract with RACV Solar.

Although this charger indicated it was available on the Chargefox app, who managed payments, it would engage but not begin charging. PlugShare did show that there had been issues and I did engage with Chargefox who were unable to get it to start.

Please note that the BYD Atto 3 is unable to charge on V3 Tesla Super chargers of which there are 3 at Cann River. As the Orbost Tritium charger has been off line for months, I had to trickle charge wherever I could – it took 6 hours to get to Orbost and then charge overnight at the Marlo Hotel where there was a free wall charger.

From Bruthen, where there is a new Evie charger the trip to Melbourne is easy with lots of options.

Returning home days later, with plans to charge at Bega, we found this NRMA Tritium charger was also out of action. This necessitated an overnight stay in Bega even though we were only 60km from home.

There are no DC chargers at Pambula, Merimbula or Eden. With Bega, Cann River and Orbost Tritium chargers out there is a real issue between Batemans Bay and Bruthen.

This is not acceptable on the major coastal route between Sydney and Melbourne and is potentially a disincentive to transition to EVs. There are also potential negative flow on effects to tourism and small businesses in these regional areas.

It does seem that the current single charger installation policies coupled with the known unreliability of the older Tritium chargers is not the best way forward. I am hoping that you organisation can lobby and advocate more effectively with this real life example if the current inadequacy of the charging infrastructure.

Please also note that this has not deterred me – having an EV is the best thing I have done and I will continue to travel and make sure I have a plan b and c!

Stuart Absalom

Central Tilbra

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