Long distance road trips in electric cars are becoming more common, though the more remote stretches of road in Australia still present challenges.
Take, for instance, the dual circumnavigation recently completed by Tesla Model Y owners Harald Murphy and Pete Petrovsky. The two took delivery of brand new Tesla Model Ys and promptly set off to drive around Australia in opposite directions.
Whilst both are experienced EV owners and Murphy has done the “big lap” before, they both expressed frustration at the ongoing lack of not just DC fast chargers, but also slower AC chargers on the 6,500km stretch of road west of Townsville.
And this was with the right cables on hand to make best use of the wide range of charging sites in remote areas. From single-phase 10amp powerpoints to three-phase 32amp plugs, it is something of a minefield if the right research is not done ahead of remote long-distance drives in an EV.
Tiffany Overton – the first woman to complete the big lap solo in an non-Tesla EV – experienced firsthand the difficulties that emerge without the right cables (although some of her challenges were directly related to the fact she was in a 2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC that only charged at a top rate of 7kW on an AC charger.)
As did Mick O’Donnell, who set out in a Polestar 2 with wife Annie without a 32amp cable. While both got to their destinations safe and sound the road trips were not without drama.
But the latest electric road trip across the more remote stretches of Australia has underlined how much it easier to do with the right know-how, tips and research.
Geoff Mathers spoke with The Driven about his trip from Sydney to Darwin and back, saying that although his 2021 Long Range Tesla is the first EV he’s ever owned, the trip was easier than he anticipated.
First things first, a three-phase cable
“I just sort of looked through Plugshare to find a way to charge,” he says. He watched Outback Tesla videos, whose videos describe the ins and outs of driving an EV in – unsurprisingly – the outback.
This meant he knew that a three-phase plug was the way to go. Although, getting his hands on one proved to be a bit of a drama after the 11kW cable he’d booked for hire through the Tesla Owners Club hadn’t been returned by the previous owner.
“Two days before I left in the pouring rain in Sydney, I went down to the warehouse to pick it up, and it wasn’t there,” he said. A couple of phone calls tracked it down and the errant hirer couriered it to him, thankfully.
“After a few frantic calls eventually they arranged to have a courier to the first hotel I stayed in Brisbane,” he says. “I used that charger so many times it was so, so useful out there.”
Mathers then drove up to Rockhampton, along a route with plenty of fast-chargers.
After that it was all three phase plugs across to Longreach (which is now home to the most westerly fast-charger in Queensland) and then up to Mount Isa.
While the Long Range Model 3 has one of the longest ranges of EVs available in Australia, the trip wasn’t without issues.
Stopping to charge in Emerald
“The first day out of Rockhampton, I was going to Barcardine which is a bit too far for my range so I had to stop at Emerald. If you look in Plugshare at Emerald, there’s nowhere to charge except for at motels. You have to stay at night and I didn’t want to stay the night.
Helpfully, the Emerald tourist information centre suggested he speak to the caretaker at the showgrounds. “I rang him a few days before I went and he said yeah, okay, I’ll meet you by the blue shed and I said I’d be there about 11 o’clock in the morning.”
He took Mathers to a three-phase outlet but declined being added to Plugshare. “So it’s kind of a secret charge,” says Mathers.
After that Mathers winged it a bit. “I didn’t really book accommodation anywhere, and there’s thousands of grey nomads in their caravans out there. So anytime a little town has a festival, there is no accommodation at all.”
This meant that there were a few times he drove to showgrounds and ended up sleeping in the car. Learning his lesson, he booked accommodation on the way back via South Australia
“So coming back down, I booked accommodation. I rang ahead about Tesla charging, it was a lot easier,” he says.
There was one trick spot when he got to the iconic Barkly Homestead.
“The one tricky place I had was the Barkly Roadhouse which is in between Mount Isa. As you cross over the Territory border, you head up to the Stuart Highway. That’s beyond the range of almost any car – you have to drive really, really slowly and you have to stay at this Barkly Roadhouse in the middle,” he says.
“I rang them up before and they said you can’t book a powered site – it’s first in best rates. So I got there about four o’clock in the afternoon, went to the reception and it was all sold out.”
Asking if he could charge the car, he says they replied, “We don’t let you charge here, sorry.” Instead, they offered him an unpowered site for the night.
“So I had a tent and we just found the unpowered site camping area which is quite nice grassy little area. Next to it was a pump, and next to that was a spare normal power socket. So as soon as I got back, I just plugged into there. It gave me about 20% overnight. And then as soon as a caravan left in the morning, I jumped on there for a couple of hours. So by 10 o’clock was fine. So that was good,” he says.
Word is that early adopters did encourage the homestead to install a three-phase connection for visiting EVs, but because of the lag in EV adoption compared to the rest of the world, the previous owners of the homestead decided to use it for their freezer instead.
Now it is under new management, there is hope that the homestead’s stance towards EVs will change.
About $300 each way
Mathers says the cost to drive from Sydney to Darwin was around $250, and $316 on the way back. Helpfully, he has provided a break down of the costs and the types of chargers for others thinking of doing the trip.
He has also produced a number of videos along the way, that you can view on Youtube.
He also noticed the wide variance in charging costs at roadhouses. Because there is no standard, the pricing at outback roadhouses tends to be a bit random. Sometimes the staff are not aware of the presence of a plug that EVs can use to charge, so it helps to be diplomatic and know the etiquette.
“Most of time, when you go to a roadhouse to charge up, you don’t bother asking the desk,” he says. “Look at the Plugshare photo to work out where it is, go plug in, and then go back to reception and just tell them that you’re plugged in,” he says.
“Generally they will just say, “Tell us when you’re finished,” he says. Typically they’ll then ask how much electricity you used to work out how much to charge you. The going rate seems to be about 50 cents a kilowatt-hour, but it can be higher, he says.
“Some of them say don’t worry about it, it’s on the house,” he says. Mataranka homestead is one example, as can be seen above.
Hypermiling from Coober Pedy
No good electric road trip is done without a spot of hypermiling – that is, driving slowly to get the most range on a long stretch of road.
“I was coming down from Coober Pedy in South Australia down to Port Augusta and there were really, really strong headwinds,” says Mathers.
“I checked the weather forecasts, and it was going to be headwinds all the way at about 30 kilometers an hour. And, the charger at the Glendambo roadhouse on the way had broken down. So I had to skip the roadhouse It’s about 360km away with a strong headwind, and my range out there was about 420 to 440,” he says.
So I had to hypermile and just keep an eye on the power consumption to make sure I got there. “It was fine, I got there with five or 10%. It was the only time I really had to worry about range.”
Do you have any tips for electric road trips?
“I guess when I first started, I was pretty conservative, I’d sort of make sure I got to somewhere with 20% range spare, because I didn’t really know where the plugs would be, or how accommodating they would be,” he says.
“On the way back, I was really confident to arrive with five or 10% (on the battery) and confident that the chargers would work by checking Plugshare. So as you get more confident with it, you get more adventurous.”
“It’s actually easier than you think. You know, it’s there’s always somewhere to charge. If you are a bit flexible on time, there’s no risk at all really,” he adds.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.
