NSW promotes EV-friendly road trips to tackle range anxiety

Nine road trips throughout NSW have been equipped with charging infrastructure under a state government policy to promote both electric vehicles and regional tourism.

The routes – including 171 kilometres through the Snowy Mountains and 819 kilometres from Sydney to Tweed Heads – were already promoted by Destination NSW, but now qualify as “EV friendly”, with at least two fast chargers and one destination charging plug per 100 kilometres.

On average, modern EVs can travel 400 kilometres on a single charge.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said the state government was “committed to making the state a leader in electric vehicle adoption and sustainable tourism.”

Range anxiety – the fear a vehicle will run out of power – has long hampered uptake of EVs.

It has also driven a surge of interest in plug-in hybrid vehicles, a type of EV with an internal combustion engine as well as a chargeable battery, allowing drivers to switch between the two.

Nine EV-friendly road trips in NSW

• Central Coast and Hunter Valley – 257 km through Central Coast, Hunter and Newcastle
• Grand Pacific Drive – 200km along the coastline from Sydney to Jervis Bay
• Greater Blue Mountains Drive – 283km round trip from Sydney through the Blue Mountains
• Southern Highlands to the South Coast – 210km trip through the highlands and coast
• Kosciuszko Alpine Way – 171km through the Snowy Mountains
• Southern Tablelands – 100km through Goulburn and surrounds
• Classic Country – 422km trip through the Southern and Riverina Murray tourism regions
• Legendary Pacific Coast – 819km, multi-day journey along the Pacific Highway from Sydney to Tweed Heads
• Sydney to Melbourne coastal drive – 406km through Australia’s south-eastern corner as far as Merimbula

Electric Vehicle Council figures suggest that, of the roughly 300,000 electric vehicles in Australia, about 248,000 are pure battery models and 53,500 are plug-in hybrids. There was a strong uptick in plug-in hybrid sales last year.

Luke Todd, managing director of importer EVDirect, said many people who want to drive electric vehicles were shifting to hybrids due to range anxiety. He spoke to this masthead at the launch of Chinese car manufacturer BYD’s new offering, the Sealion 7 SUV, in Adelaide last week.

Todd said home solar meant many EV drivers did not pay anything for fuel, especially if they did not have a long commute. “Ideally, EVs are the utopia, especially if you’ve got solar,” Todd said.

But Australia’s vast open spaces were comparatively sparsely populated, Todd said, and, without more roadside EV chargers outside cities, some will want the reassurance of an alternative power source.

The NSW government is spending $199 million to support the installation of thousands of public EV charge ports around the state, including ultra-fast charging stations and destination and kerbside chargers.

Aman Gaur, head of legal, policy and advocacy at the Electric Vehicle Council, said NSW’s policy was excellent, but it needed to be replicated in other states before range anxiety would fade entirely.

Gaur said EV manufacturers had introduced plug-in models in more vehicle types, such as utes, while the types of pure battery EVs were more limited.

Gaur said battery electric car drivers saved about $3000 a year on running costs, while drivers of plug-in hybrid models saved $1000 to $2000 a year. This cost-saving has driven growth of all EV types in the outer suburbs, where residents are also more likely to have driveways and solar panels.

Gaur said evidence from Mitsubishi suggested plug-in hybrids ran on electricity 60 to 70 per cent of the time.

“We do want to see Australia move into battery electric cars,” Gaur said. “However, we’re not utopians and we understand there’s a transition that needs to happen.”

EVDirect hosted Environment Editor Nick O’Malley in Adelaide.

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