Image: EVX
The Albanese Government has committed $2.4 million to install new kerbside EV charging infrastructure around Australia to meet rising consumer demand, with one in three drivers considering an EV in the next five years.
The new commitment, in partnership with EVX Australia, will see 250 kerbside chargers with 500 charge plugs installed in the next two and a half years in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
The project, backed by funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), will use existing power lines to limit disruption and reduce costs.
The targeted locations are a mix of urban hubs and regional centres like Orange, Wagga Wagga, Bellingen and Goulburn.
“These chargers are a key step to unlocking cleaner, cheaper-to-run EVs for Australians who aren’t able to charge them at home,” said Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.
“When we came to government, one in 50 cars was an EV. That’s now one in ten, and we’ve tripled the number of fast chargers across Australia.
“But we need a mix of solutions – not just fast chargers, but more convenient kerbside options in our cities and towns.”
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said kerbside charging was a major limiting factor for EV uptake, noting that many Australians lack home charging infrastructure.
“This initiative will make EV charging more accessible for both residents and visitors, while allowing us to refine the rollout process for future expansion,” Miller said.
The project is part of the government’s Driving the Nation program, which has already boosted the number of fast-charging stations nationwide from 356 to more than 1,100, with more than 3,500 plugs now available.
EVX will partner with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to coordinate real-time reporting, and will work with Ausgrid and Essential Energy on flexible tariff structures.
The company will also partner with EV charging app Wevolt to develop an open-access interface between utility systems and the public EV charging network to improve customer experience.
This latest step is part of a suite of changes the Albanese Government has introduced to promote the uptake of EVs on Australian roads, including tripling the number of fast chargers on the road since 2022, and introducing the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES), which came into effect on January 1st.
The NVES sets emissions limits for new vehicles sold by manufacturers, and those limits will get stricter over time. If a manufacturer exceeds the emissions cap they will face financial penalties.
Under the scheme, car companies that sell low or zero-emissions cars can also offset the emissions of higher-emitting vehicles against them.
According to Climate Council, the new scheme should prevent 20 million tonnes of carbon emissions by 2030.
The number of EV models available in Australia has dramatically increased in the last five years thanks to greater market competition as brands like BYD and MG introduce lower-cost models.
In 2020, Australian customers had access to just 28 EV models. By 2024, that number had risen to 122, and with sales that year making up a whopping 10% of the vehicle market, as noted by Minister Bowen.
Despite soaring uptake in Australia, the growth of EV sales actually slowed in 2024. While in 2023, EV sales increased by 161% on the previous year, 2024’s sales were up a modest 4.7% from the previous year.
That slowdown is likely in part to be a natural consequence of market saturation as early adopters have already made their purchases, particularly under the new measures introduced after the Government came to power in May 2022.
2023 was also a bumper year for EVs thanks to a storm of factors including the stabilization of global supply-chain woes after COVID, and the arrival of several new lower-cost models to the market.
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Great stuff. I like the EVX solution, it’s very neat, and they’re a home-grown company to boot.
👍
1 in 10 cars in Australia are not EV.
I think that is 1 in ten new cars? Might be a slip of the tongue - or maybe ICE vehicles don't use battery charges?
I think he meant 1 in 10 new cars are EVs… which was only briefly nearly true about a year ago. Unfortunately, EV sales have slumped a bit since then.
Put the chargers in Shopping centre carparks, not on the street where there is more competition for parking with ICE vehicles.
Agree shopping centre parking is important but needs time limit.
I think it would also be ok thinking if they are installed in high density living areas need parking time limits to give residents a chance to park near homes.
The more chargers the merrier.
Kerbside chargers have a different use case.
There's already cut-throat competition for parking spots at certain times at Shopping centres.
Kerbside next to people's homes is where this needs to be, so they can plug in and charge overnight instead of draping a long cable over the footpath.
Hopefully ICE drivers will park in spots other than near one of these chargers if they don't like having a long cable draped over their car.
The hope is that eventually every pole will have one of these so there's enough to go around even if some get ICEd.
I guess QLD and Tasmania don't have any EVs?
QLD is trying to eliminate anything that does not use fossil-fuels, so they don’t deserve any.
TAS doesn’t need kerbside chargers.
As usual, such projects favour electorates of concern for the ruling party.
Pork barreling, gerrymandering and drop in candidates.
Pollies favourite pastimes.
It's a sad reflection of the readers of this site that you got downvoted.
Typical.
Most of them have no need for kerbside chargers and resent the use of taxpayer money to fund them.
EVX are the worst. I can't believe they were offered this 2.4M in funding. They charge DC prices for AC charging. 12+cent per KW more than others for the same street charging.
I guess they tendered low to get the government to pay for the unit and installation so they could gouge on price.
If that's all true it's a shame the govt didn't look at their business model.
Just open the app and look at their pricing. It's 50c during the day for my nearest EVX which is 4c cheaper than my nearest JOLT at 25kW. So yes I would say DC prices for AC charging. JOLT were 49c until their recent (annual) 10% price hike.
what price were you expecting to pay? 30-40c is about the average electricity cost once you’ve included things like access charge, demand tariff (averaged) and Tou (averaged). Then the hardware (~$10k?), installation and maintenance when some dickhead tries to steal the copper, the backoffice infrastructure, rental of the parking spot, admin costs, some profit margin, etc. 50c sounds pretty reasonable.
My local woolies probably has subsidised AC at 22c/kWh. The outlet shops are 30c/kWh. I have seen a nearby bank parking bay on Chargefox for 40c/kWh. So I would say 30-40c, but put it this way, what would you choose:
25kW at 54c, or 11kW at 50c?
For me, I would go DC for 4c more in terms of speed/time saving.
So would I, but it’s still pretty rare to have chargers close enough that you are choosing them based on which is cheaper. It’s unlikely that these will be going in locations where good options already exist.
“They charge DC prices for AC charging”
Where can one DC charge for 50c/kWh at daytime and 39c at night?
If you think it’s not value for money, you are free to not use them. But they get plenty of use in Sydney from what I can see. I guess people hare happy to pay for convenience, accessibility and reliability.
How will you keep jealous ICE drivers from parking there?
In NSW, parking restriction signs that say “Electric vehicles only while charging”. Parking contrary to this restriction will land you a $195 on-the-spot fine or a court issued fine up to $2200.
Probably a better idea to subsidise home chargers. Go out every day with a full charge.
That wouldn’t help people who don’t have off-street parking, which is the main use case for kerbside chargers.
In my area (urban fringe, quite a few holiday/ homes weekenders) there were 0 public charging options within a 30 min drive until we got 3 off these street chargers last year. Plenty of evs but all of them would have access to home chargers. They don’t seem to get the level of use that they would be making much money (yet) but they give visitors an option, locals using just a granny charger a backup plan, a person without access to home charging a reason to make their next car an EV, and a tourist driving an EV a reason to stay in your area and spend money in your town. Sounds like money well spent to me.
What you've described is desperate councils sucking the last dollar out of tourists while ignoring the locals.
Holiday houses and EVs.
Utopia (for the rich)
Some of us take family members to regional areas for sports for example. I choose hotels with EV charging if the price is good unless the destination has sufficient chargers. We stayed at Yamba on north coast NSW once, no chargers in town, 40 min round trip to a charger. A dozen pole chargers would have been great.
My area is the opposite of posh, the council barely knows we exist, and main reason the state gov knows about us that if the power stations go out Sydney gets dark. Oh, and there’s thousands of new residents coming who can’t afford Sydney house prices