4 thoughts on “Six Things I’ve Learned Driving An EV in Australia For The Past Four Years

  1. Very interesting article. The battery fire hazard statistics compared with petrol and diesel car fires really put it into perspective.

  2. I also enjoyed that read
    I was hoping to find a bit more info on charging times
    I did learn something’s about the home charge and station charge being different
    but not by how long
    Like after say a 2 hr drive how long does it take to fill it back to the top again
    and from near empty to full at home and at a station
    I know it depends on the vehicle and battery

    1. Thanks — glad you enjoyed it.

      As for charging times, it very much depends on a LOT of variables (battery capacity of car, speed of public charger, even how fast you were driving and ambient temperatures!) , but I’ll try to give it some very rough context.

      For a two hour drive if I’m charging at most public chargers you’re probably talking about a 10-20 minute stop typically, but one important aspect here is that you don’t (and shouldn’t) think about it as always wanting to charge to “full”. It’s really about getting to the next charger or your end destination, especially if you can charge there, even if that’s going to be slow charging. The same kind of charging at home, you’re probably talking a few hours — but then for many of us, the car’s sitting at home doing little to nothing anyway, it’s not time you’ll notice if you’re otherwise doing whatever else it is you do at home!

      This does take some mental rethinking about how you “refuel” the car, but once you get used to it, you do start to realise how much time you might spend driving to a servo, fuelling, paying, etc.

      There’s a few decent guides to charging speeds/times out there; EVSE’s one here is pretty decent as a starter: https://evse.com.au/blog/how-long-does-it-take-to-charge-an-electric-car/

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