Two of the four Sutton Forest EV fast chargers were out of action on Boxing Day, together with another at the Goulburn visitor's centre, highlighting one of the ongoing issues about using an electric vehicles during peak holiday travel periods.
However, while spiteful social media posts during the Easter 2023 driving holidays criticised charger reliability and lengthy queues at charging stations, observers say the level of EV driver anger and anxiety during this Christmas holiday period appears to be much less.
EV charging networks were expecting maximum surge usage during the holiday season after a bumper year of sales for electric vehicles, and network pressure is only likely to increase in 2024.
As new federal EV charging reforms arrive in weeks, many unresolved issues still trouble the nation's zero emission expansionary phase, including a common data-sharing database which doesn't depend on the potentially manipulative effects of crowd-sharing.
EV drivers rely on crowd-sourced information about important issues like waiting queues and offline chargers. New charger maps such the Transport for NSW locator show only where the chargers are, not whether they are working.
Potentially, there are lessons to be learned here from the fuel market, which struggled through the same issues until NSW Fair Trading intervened and rolled out the FuelCheck app across NSW and more recently, the ACT.
The credibility of Fuel Check was supported by legislative powers on price reporting obligations. Companies that post inaccurate information face penalties and fines.
Key reforms on EV charging are arriving in January. From next month, all chargers funded by state and federal governments will require an "uptime" of 98 per cent, each site must have at least two DC charging units with a minimum of two plugs each, and at least one bay per site must be a disability-accessible parking bay.
At least 70 per cent of chargers must have the CCS Type two plugs, used by around 70 per cent of EVs, while state and territory-funded chargers must have a standardised payment system.
And to help out those want to tow with their EV - which is one of the emerging issues ahead given the need to eventually transition the huge number of Australia's combustion-engined tow cars - at least one site must be a "drive-through" type.
Ben Elliston, ACT president of the Australian Electric Vehicle Owners Association, said while the number of chargers had roughly doubled this year, so too had the number of electric vehicles sold, so the pressure on the network remained.
But he was pleased to note that some of the more angry comments which had been expressed and posted during the Easter 2023 peak driving period were less prevalent during this Christmas-New Year peak, which suggested that EV drivers were "adjusting" and changing their travel patterns.
"There has been some queuing at the Hume Highway chargers such as Tarcutta, Sutton Forest and Gundagai but that is to be expected," Mr Elliston said.
"I was watching some of the online commentary around the charging demand and saw that there were some helpful comments going up such as someone arriving at the Tarcutta charging station and posting 'just arrived, three ahead of me'."
He said that one of the most important EV etiquettes for peak charging periods was to stop charging at 80 per cent to cutting down on waiting time for others.
