“You can’t drive an EV outside the cities” they say… but how true is that? Once again, I’m hitting the road to find out.
As my regular readers would know, I’ve not driven a petrol or diesel powered vehicle for some years now, having made the transition to EV driving by way of a import Nissan Leaf and a Tesla Model 3.
To get it out of the way now: Elon is, in my opinion, a total berk. I’ve said my piece, your view may vary and that’s fine… but he is. Moving on…
What has interested me are the emerging discussions around EVs in Australia, most of which focus on the utility of those vehicles for everyday drivers. There will always be edge cases, everyone is a little different – but for most folks the use of a car is about getting from point A to point B.
One of the bigger sticks used by the anti-EV crowd is that it’s impossible to drive or operate a regional EV; they may be “fine for the city, but not for us in rural Australia”. I grew up in rural Australia, so I know the attitudes pretty well.
Having recently done one regional EV trip while reviewing the MG4 Excite 51 from Sydney to Wagga Wagga, I was keen for more.
Also read:
MG4 51 Excite Review: Is it worth buying Australia’s cheapest EV?
So when the opportunity came up to make a trip from Sydney to Armidale in New South Wales’ New England region, I made plans and started working out the trip specifics.
This was originally also going to be a new EV review, but unfortunately the availability of that particular car fell through at the last minute. No dramas per se, it just meant that I’d be using the Model 3 instead, and focusing more in on the regional EV charging experience.
I should also point out – because it nearly always comes up – that I drive conservatively and make plans around charger options, but this isn’t always a must.
Setting off on a Friday morning with a full tank of electrons, the first stop was…
NRMA/Chargefox Scone, NSW: A lovely stop
Charging Cost: $21.26
Charge: 32.21kWh
Charging Time: 51 minutes
The Model 3 wants to only navigate to Tesla superchargers, and the route would suggest the bank of superchargers at the winery at Hollydene. I’ve done that trek before, and it’s off the route and at a winery where, unless you’re keen on wine, there’s not a whole lot to do or a huge range of food options. So instead I opted for the NRMA/Chargefox charger – there’s only the one – in Scone instead.
I arrived literally as someone else was pulling away in Polestar 2, and plugged in using an RFID card to authenticate my session. For boring technical insurance (and stupidity on their part) reasons, I can’t get the NRMA app to work without calling them and waiting in a hold queue, and who needs that stress?
This was a longer charging stop, and that did not matter at all because we stopped to have a nice relaxed lunch. Vittles consumed, the car was ready to roll, and honestly, that could have been our only stop, with the car displaying enough power to get to Armidale with just under 10% battery remaining. Doing that trip for $21.26 isn’t too bad going, I feel.
Also read:
Road Trip: Tesla Model 3 vs Polestar 2: Does Tesla still have a Supercharger advantage in Australia?
However, I had other plans in mind relating to my return journey, so we also stopped in…
Tesla Tamworth, NSW: 2B or not 2B?
Charging Cost: $4.77
Charge: 8.23kWh
Charging Time: 5 minutes
Why stop if we didn’t need to? Mostly because of the return trip and the way I wanted to treat this particular trip and its charging challenges. The Tesla superchargers in Tamworth are open to all, which I 100% support – I like having more charger choices for everyone – but they’re also notably one of the flakiest superchargers in Australia, or at least amongst the ones I’ve tested.
Earlier in the week the Model 3 wouldn’t even route to them as it claimed they were all out of order, even though some Plugshare users reported that they could get some of them to work. I wanted to see what the state of play was, because on the day of driving the car reckoned 3 of the 4 were operational, but I had been through there before when it said all 4 were working, only to find just 1 of them operational.
Arriving to an empty queue of superchargers, I plugged into station 2B… but it was not to be, because it refused to charge at all. Again, as a reminder, I didn’t need the charge at the time, but as I had to pass by Tamworth, it made sense to see if I’d be able to charge on the way back. 2B wasn’t playing nice, but 1A was, so I grabbed a couple of minutes of charge before heading on my way.
That led me to Armidale, and a final charging stop, again more in the spirit of seeing what was feasible. Chargers still aren’t at the position where planning ahead isn’t really needed.
NRMA/Chargefox Armidale, NSW: Merry Go Round
Charging Cost: $7.39
Charge: 11.20kWh
Charging Time: 22 minutes claimed (but that’s not right)
I grew up in Armidale, and we were staying with friends who very kindly offered to let us charge the car at their home – there would have been more than enough time to “granny charge” that way without trouble from their solar power – but I wanted to keep this particular test entirely based around public chargers, which meant it was worthwhile working out whether Armidale’s sole current public EV charger (outside hotels and a future Tesla site that’s yet to put down a single shovel based on my observations) was actually going to work.
Again, like Tamworth, Armidale’s charger has a… reputation.
This was the first stop where we arrived to an occupied charger, though not for long. A near twin Model 3 (only newer, the odd “Highland” model 3) was already parked there.
Hitting the nearby bathrooms – the charger is at the tourist information centre – and emerging, I saw a very confused couple standing outside their Model 3, trying to work out why it wasn’t charging. As you do, I got to chatting with them and tried to help to get the charger rolling, because it had started to charge, given them about 20 minutes… and then stopped dead and refused to get going at all.
They were using the NRMA app that hates me, so I couldn’t do much with that, and they also figured they had enough to get to Glenn Innes, so they chose to depart. Time for me to see what kind of charge I could get, while also browsing the rather interesting second-hand bookstores of Armidale.
Hey, you spend your free time how you want to, and I’ll do so in my own style… only in this case not for long, as 15 minutes after plugging in and confirming that it had started charging, the car alerted me that charging had stopped. So I walked back to the car, and had the exact same problem that the couple before me had encountered. Couldn’t restart the charge, but this wasn’t a killer problem as I had enough to get back to Tamworth pretty handily.
Oddly, the chargefox invoice suggests it was 22 minutes of charging, which it wasn’t, but then the NRMA doesn’t price by time, but instead charge received. There’s definitely something quite wacky about this particular charger…
This wasn’t a driving trip for the pleasure of driving – I’m not that kind of person, though that’s not a judgement on you if you are – but instead one that allowed me to take in a very pleasant parkrun…
Armidale Parkrun is excellent, even if I could only walk it due to a leg injury. Still totally worth it.
And then spend most of the day and a chunk of the night taking in an extremely enjoyable concert with friends out at a nearby winery:
The three day growth I had, though I don’t think we can call the wine “cheap” any more.
Jimmy Barnes is 68, just out of hospital… and yet somehow he’s still a force of nature that can sweep up 10,000 people in his wake.
The next morning, while the coffee was hot and the toast was brown, it was time to get back on the road.
Because we’d nibbled on most of our trip supplies the day prior – sitting in a field listening to some excellent Aussie rock takes calories, you know – we decided to do a supermarket run while giving the Armidale NRMA/Chargefox charger one last try, because hey, why not?
NRMA/Chargefox Armidale, NSW: You Got Nothing I Want
Charging Cost: $7.13
Charge: 10.79kWh
Charging Time: 18 minutes
Once again, the Armidale NRMA charger strikes! It was early enough in the morning – and I suspect the other 9,998 Chisel fans were sleeping off the many bottles of wine and cans off beer they’d consumed the day before – that the charger wasn’t occupied, but it also didn’t want to charge for all that long, finishing up before we’d finished in the supermarket nearby.
This 100% is not ideal.
Armidale is meant to be getting a set of open Tesla Superchargers in what used to be the old Woolworths carpark at… some point… but driving past showed absolutely no work has started at all. There are other chargers at some of the hotels, and as noted I rather deliberately didn’t granny charge where I could have. Not a huge drama for what I wanted to do, however, as I could hit the road on the way to…
Nundle Woollen Mills
Charging cost: $0
Charge: 0kWh
Charging Time: 0 minutes
Nundle actually does have a charger on the Everty network, though it’s a weird one, because the Plugshare app doesn’t show it up, but a Google search for “EV Charger Nundle” has as its first result… Plugshare, and clicking on that link from a phone will open up the charger.
I have no idea what’s going on there, but our plans and charge level meant we didn’t need to fuss with finding it anyway, as Tamworth isn’t that far away anyway.
The reason to be in Nundle was more so that my better half could indulge in her crafty passions at the Wool Mill. I took the opportunity for some photo testing for some upcoming phone reviews, and we got back on the road.
I’ve included this diversion partly because it did add distance and therefore use power, but also because I do feel that it’s important to take in the sights and stop for a while on these longer road trips anyway. It’s good for local economies, but it’s also good for your mental health, because a lot of longer Australian road trips can otherwise be wearing on the soul.
Tesla Tamworth, NSW: Unexpected reader meeting
Charging Cost: $29.13
Charge: 50.23kWh
Charging Time: 39 minutes
By the time we’d routed out of Nundle and into Tamworth, we were greeted by a fully occupied set of Tesla chargers… including 2B that had been DOA only two days prior. The driver of that car was standing and waiting, so I hopped out to check his likely timing, because the Armidale charger’s spotty behaviour meant we had to charge in Tamworth no matter what. Also I was curious to see if he had encountered issues with that charger… which he hadn’t, but he did ask me if I was the guy who had left the Plugshare review two days ago!
Having been a writer as long as I have I have run into readers of my content before, but I think that’s the first time I’ve had a Plugshare reader comment on something I’d written there!
We swapped notes, and astonishingly he’d just been in Nundle as well beforehand, spotting the charger there but its lack of presence on Plugshare as well as taking in the interesting trek that is hiring and using an EV in Scotland…. Which I did at the start of the year!
Also read:
UFODrive Review: App-Based EV Rental (with a few quirks)
He was quickly finished, and we gingerly approached 2B to see if it would charge – and thankfully it did, though not that rapidly. That’s understandable as all the other stalls were busy, and that does tend to share the power around. Plus, well, the Tamworth superchargers can be like that you, know?
Power restored, we again technically had enough to get home, but only by about 3%, which isn’t a margin I like much, so we decided that we’d make one last stop – also a lunch stop at…
NRMA/Chargefox Scone, NSW: Busy (but not too busy)
Charging Cost: $6.16
Charge: 9.33kWh
Charging Time: 14 minutes
The Scone charger was occupied when we got there, but hunger pangs meant we went for a quick walk to score some food. Returning with it, the car that was there was just setting off, so we charged while we ate, actually getting slightly more than we needed to get home. My typical preferred buffer there is around 15% battery, just to cover any unexpected hills or areas of higher acceleration (staying within the legal limits, of course), and we had more than that remaining by the time we returned home.
Total trip statistics
Charging Cost: $75.84
Charge: 121.99kWh
Total distance: 1,003km
Charging Time: 149 minutes
An interesting trip, and one that does point to the fact that regional NSW could use more charging options, and especially more charging options that work reliably and quickly.
I’ve no doubt the anti-EV crowd will jump on that charging time figure there and scoff, but I’d suggest you look at the bigger picture, and the specific choices I made for this trip.
If I had charged from my friend’s solar (a totally open option to me, but maybe not to others) then I would have left Armidale with 100% charge and only needed to top up again at Scone, or maybe with an additional 5 minutes or so in Tamworth to take the Nundle diversion into account.
I have no doubt that it’s 100% feasible to do this entire trip with just those Scone stops – and in both cases I had lunch stops planned then anyway. Hopefully as more chargers come into play in more locations then wait and charge times will improve; in the years that I’ve been driving EVs that’s only gone one way and that’s upwards – but it would be nice to see the pace and reliability improve.
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About the Author
As a Tamworth resident and regular traveler I am very familiar with the challenges at the Tamworth Tesla site (Ionic 5 owner). I’m surprised with your challenges relating to the NRMA App as I can’t fault it and use the NRMA 50kW charger in Tamworth regularly. It is extremely reliable, you should have given it a run on one of your passes through. What is frustrating is the proposed 350kW multibay charging station that was proposed / announced over 2 years ago for a WW site has yet to progress. Furthermore the previous Tamworth Council were anti-EV with a large anti-renewables movement throughout the New England so progress has been slow – there’s a real lack of understanding of the benefits to the local economy. The majority of Northern NSW is now covered by at least one charging station but that doesn’t support range anxiety when reliability for chargers can be poor. There does need to be more high speed chargers such as the tesla sites with minimum 150kW chargers. Tenterfield is a great example with a 4 bay Tesla (250kw) charging station and a 50kw NRMA site. It’s my go to when travelling to Queensland. On a recent trip I charged to 100% at Tenterfield (@95kw – Hyundai I5 won’t charge faster than that on Tesla chargers) and was able to drive to Noosa without needing to recharge.
It’s a real mixed bag for sure. I knew about the NRMA charger in Tamworth, and primarily didn’t use it as it’s a solo charger vs a bay of them (even if flaky) at the Tesla site. My issues with the NRMA app are almost entirely with NRMA’s database — they have me listed as a customer (I was a long time ago — a long and painful insurance story I won’t go into here) so they want me to log in, but then they can’t find the account (because it’s closed), so I both can and can’t log in. It *might* be fixable if I was willing to spend 30+ minutes in a hold queue to talk to someone who may or may not be able to fix it… or I can tap on with an RFID card attached to my Chargefox account and just get on with charging in seconds. For some reason, that’s what I do…