Electric charging network Evie is gearing up for one of its biggest ever public electric vehicle charging weekends, as Australians prepare to hit the road over Easter.
The company that takes charge of Chargefox in the burgeoning public electric vehicle charging sector, said it “continues to focus” on ensuring its chargers are up and running well before the four-day weekend.
Evie claims the 2022 Christmas holiday season is their busiest ever, offering 4.9 million kilometers of tolls to electric vehicle owners across their network.
With drivers expected to pack up and hit the road with their families over the upcoming holiday weekend, the nation’s public electric vehicle charging network will once again come under pressure from owners. EV ownership is increasing.
Electric vehicle owners are being encouraged to research their routes and plan charging stops ahead of time, with stations located about five hours from a major city expected to be the most crowded spots during the break.
As the number of electric cars on local roads increases, the need for public fast charging will continue to grow, putting a strain on the nation’s burgeoning electric charging network.
Chargefox, like Evie, is constantly working to keep its ultrafast chargers online during outages and hardware issues, adding to waiting times for owners at busy stations. .
According to the Electric Vehicle Council report from 2022, there are more than 83,000 electric vehicles in Australia, almost half of which have been delivered by 2022.
The same report by the EV Council said there were 4943 individual public EV charging plugs in Australia as of December 2022, spread across 2392 charging stations.
A charging station is often home to multiple plugs, allowing owners to charge in parallel at the same point.
The majority of the 2392 public toll locations only have slower 24kW chargers, which take two to three hours to fully charge the base Tesla Model 3.
Only 99 public charging stations offer 100kW+ ultrafast charging in Australia, with over 365 packaged chargers capable of DC charging from 24 to 99kW.
Evie has opened its 111th location in Wangaratta, Victoria, with a 50kW DC charger.
