As our nation grapples with a messy and anxiety-inducing fossil fuel crisis, not to mention the existential threat of climate change, it is as clear as the water in Wylie’s Baths down at Coogee that we need to shift our entire city vehicle fleet to electric as quickly as possible.
So the NSW government’s EV charger rollout can’t come soon enough. But if they think “hundreds” more will cut the mustard, as they say in the classics, “tell them they’re dreamin’.”
On Easter Saturday, a little overly smug in the knowledge that we’d be driving past all those $3 per litre diesel signs, my family set off in our EV – a Volvo XC40 recharge – on a driving holiday to the beautiful national parks of north-eastern Victoria.
Our journey took us down the Hume Highway towards Melbourne, a major motorway linking Australia’s two largest cities. As we left Sydney’s sprawling suburbs behind, our smiles of EV superiority were quickly wiped from our faces because for the rest of the trip we encountered all the problems that stop many drivers making the switch from a fossil-fuel-powered vehicle to an EV.
The issues are numerous – convenience, reliability and range anxiety. Yes, there are EV charging stations dotted along the major roadways, but there simply aren’t enough of them or enough plugs at the ones that are there.
So you pull into a station, hoping for a quick charge whilst you grab a coffee, only to find that the one or two ports are occupied and have a queue of EVs waiting their turn. A planned 15-minute stop can easily stretch to an hour or more.
At the Dog on the Tuckerbox near Gundagai, two cars were charging while two more were queued waiting for the only available ports. It’s in moments like this that EV charger rage begins to simmer and tempers flare.
And just when you think you’ve planned your trip to EV charging perfection, the chargers let you down. In Albury, a bank of five chargers were all out of action. Kaput. There was nothing we could do but drive on, hoping the electrons were flowing at the next town on our route.
Technical issues add further frustration. Different smartphone apps are required at different stations and varying connector types are still scattered among the charging ports further reducing the number of chargers available for your particular car. Charging can also slow dramatically when several cars plug in at once. And, in any case, many of the stations are not true fast chargers meaning a long wait for a useful recharge.
Compare our EV experience with the ease and certainty of a petrol-fuelled road trip: pull into any number of servos along your route, filling your thirsty car in five minutes, tap your credit card and get on your way. Is it any wonder that many drivers remain reluctant to make the switch that, as a society, we urgently need?
Any change management consultant will tell you that if you want people to adopt a new behaviour, you must make it easy. Really easy. And few cultural practices are more deeply embedded in Australian life than owning an internal combustion engine car. So if the EV transition is to succeed, drivers must not have the slightest doubt that they can charge their vehicles quickly and reliably in both cities and across regional Australia.
That means government and businesses must dramatically expand EV infrastructure across the country. We need thousands more chargers, not just hundreds. Anything less damns us to an uncertain future at the mercy of volatile global fossil fuel markets and with little hope of addressing the climate crisis.
Dr Stephen Lightfoot is vice president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
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