Electrification
Five years ago there were three electric cars on sale in Australia – BMW’s i3, Tesla’s Model S and Nissan’s Leaf. Now three has become nine. We currently have the i3, Hyundai’s Ioniq and Kona, the Jaguar I-Pace, the Nissan Leaf, the Renault Zoe and a trio of Teslas: S, X and 3. Six additions in half a decade is hardly an avalanche of new metal. There’s nothing yet from Toyota, Mazda, Kia or anything from the Volkswagen group. It’s on the way, but these industrial giants haven’t exactly fallen over themselves to rush product out.
A recent survey by Nielsen across 1000 car owners and 10 senior automotive marketers found that attitudes to electric cars in Australia took a similar wait-and-see tack. Fully 24 percent of respondents identified that they intend to buy an EV but the market penetration remains at around 0.2 percent.
“Australia is currently in a catch-22. The lack of recharging stations and infrastructure discourages electric vehicle buyers. Without consumers’ intention to purchase, the government will not prioritise to build what’s needed,” Nielsen noted.
Perhaps that does a disservice to the rapid growth of the domestic electrical charging infrastructure. Five years ago you could buy a Tesla, but route planning could be problematic. There were just two Supercharger locations in the entire country at the start of the year. Now there are nearly 40 connecting up most major arterial routes.
The Morrison government announced $15m worth of funding in August for a network of 42 fast-charging stations to be built by start-up Evie over the next 12 months (at a total cost of $50m). These stations, located about 150 kilometres apart, are Tritium 350kW ultra-fast charging units, manufactured by an Australian company headquartered in Brisbane.
“We have estimated that Australia needs around 350 sites to cover all the highways that make up Australia’s national land transportation network,” Evie’s chief executive Chris Mills said.
The chargers are suitable for all EV models currently available, and will also support new EVs capable of even-faster charging times.
Chargefox is also rolling out 350kW Tritium and ABB units, with some 22 locations adding to Queensland’s existing 17-site network with a goal to extend it to 100 sites in total.