Council bids to create network of Tesla car charge points

Elon Musk could be back in the Gold Coast before long after it was revealed a local council has approached his Tesla company about setting up a network of charge points across the region.

A local council has written to Californian electric vehicle company Tesla calling for charge stations to be installed across the region.

Tweed Shire Council has also sent letters to shopping centres encouraging the installation of equipment and says it will force all new service stations to install fast charge points.

Greens Mayor Katie Milne raised the motion in a Tweed council meeting and it was supported by all councillors, except veteran Warren Polglase.

People stand beside charging stations before entry to see the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y at the Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, California, on March 14, 2019. - Tesla introduced a new electric sports utility vehicle slightly bigger and more expensive than its Model 3, pitched as an electric car for the masses. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk showed off the "Model Y" late Thursday, March 14, 2019, at the company's design studio in the southern California city of Hawthorne, and the company began taking orders online. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)

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Electric vehicle ownership remains low in the Tweed, but deputy mayor Chris Cherry said the council expects many more people will turn away from internal combustion engines in coming years.

“There’s quite a few people interested, but right now there hasn’t been a high take-up,” she said.

“I think electric vehicles are the way of the future. But there is a lack of electric charge stations in our shire.

“It’s a bit of a chicken and an egg problem. People are going to be more reticent to buy electric vehicles otherwise. We want electric vehicles, we’re going to have to provide the infrastructure.”

Amber Heard celebrates her birthday with Elon Musk at Moo Moos Bar and Grill on the Gold Coast in April 2017. Picture: @amberheard/Instagram

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Cr Cherry said the letter to Tesla – co-founded by well-known technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been a visitor to the Goold Coast in recent years – asked if the company “would consider working with shopping centres to have them installed there”.

The council has not yet received a reply from Tesla or shopping centres.

“It will be really interesting to see (if we get a reply),” she said.

“But it’s certainly exciting times. I think there will be quite a few people who have classic cars, for example, and would like to turn them into an electric vehicle.

“We’re going to have to stop relying on petrol sometime.”

Tweed Shire Mayor Katie Milne and Deputy Mayor Chris Cherry.

There are only five electric vehicle charge points in the 1321 sqkm government area currently, Cr Cherry said.

Tweed council has partnered with Byron Shire Council to push forward a Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Strategy, titled Power Up.

It aims to see a “comprehensive network of charge stations” installed, to help overcome a lack of charging infrastructure and accompanying “range anxiety” for drivers.

Some researchers believe electric vehicles will “reach cost parity with internal combustion engines in Europe by 2021 and in China by 2025”, the report states.

The news comes after Labor today unveiled plans to set a target for half of all new cars sales by 2030 to be electric vehicles if it wins the next federal election, while the NRMA called for a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars as early as 2025.