The new NRMA charger in Mittagong.
The federal government says more fast chargers for electric vehicles between Adelaide and Melbourne, in an effort to deal with range anxiety among the growing cohort of EV owners.
Five new charger sites link the northern route between South Australia and Victoria, with new sites added to Victorian highways at Wycheproof, Ouyen, Mildura, Ararat and Marong.
The federal government is spending $39.3 million on building fast chargers every 150km between major centres.
The most recent builds in the southern part of the National EV Fast-Charging Network are being delivered by the NRMA, a partnership that will install 177 chargers in total.
Some 1000 fast chargers have now been turned on, according to the federal government, and NRMA says it has another five across Australia that should open before Christmas.
“We’re committed to setting up reliable access to EV charging infrastructure along key travel corridors and regions,” said energy minister Chris Bowen during an event in Melbourne today.
“The rollout of new NRMA chargers supports our commitment to improve consumer choice for cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars.”
Late in 2023, federal and state governments committed to a crack down on reliability issues with the country’s EV fast charging network in response to growing complaints about the failure of some charging stations.
New standards applied from January 2024 mean state-funded chargers must work 98 per cent of the time and require multiple ports, a common payment system, and include both CCS and the now rarely used ChadeMo plugs.
But it hasn’t been simple for organisations like NRMA and others wanting to install fast chargers in their network.
US-based charging equipment supplier Freewire hit the wall in the middle of the year, just after Australia-based Tritium collapsed. NRMA was forced to remove the Freewire’s battery-backed EV-fast chargers just months after they were installed and the RACV is also replacing all its first-generation Tritium chargers.
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.
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Requirement for multiple ports and uptime is good, but no minimum power requirement? I feel like for future proofing, new chargers should be capable of 500kW. 200kW at the very least.
1,000V, 500Amps is the max in the CCS spec*
If the battery pack is 1,000 V then 500kW is the max but the max battery voltage would highly likely be in the 800V market and a lot are about half that.
Generally speaking 350kW is said to be the max in the current spec although it can be pushed higher during testing.
*Argument welcomed.
Adelaide to Melbourne?! Get a map, North of Melbourne covering North Victoria
I agree! If you want to go Adelaide to Melbourne, you don't go via Mildura, Wycheproof or Ouyen. We want to know more than just a location - how fast? and how many ports?
Incidentally 98% uptime is a really rubbish target, equivalent to more than a week of downtime per year. On a per-site basis the target has to be at least 10 times, and preferably 100 times better - 99.998%. Achievable, if you take the Tesla approach and equip each location with 6 or more ports.
More tax payers money
They are about providing charging infrastructure to the western half of Victoria.
Over here please! Do not forget about us in WA, we are about 1/3 of the land mass.
And constantly remind us of how much the economy depends upon your prodigious wealth. Why don't you spend some of it locally?
Wealthy people putting their hand out for public money. Disgraceful.
This is how to do fast charging
https://electrek.co/2024/10/04/tesla-shares-impressive-data-point-about-its-supercharger-network/