Australia urged to power ahead on EV charger rollout

Electric vehicle chargers need to multiply from hundreds to thousands by the end of the decade, a major energy distributor has warned, and legal reforms might be required to ensure they arrive in time.

Ausgrid issued the warning after the International Energy Agency found Australia's charging infrastructure had slipped from one charger for every 35 electric cars to one for every 68.

One executive said a failure to act swiftly could put the brakes on electric vehicle adoption or encourage apartment dwellers and renters to adopt riskier methods of recharging their cars.

An Electric Vehicle Council report found battery-powered vehicles made up more than nine per cent of all new cars sold in Australia in 2024 - up 13 per cent on 2023.

The number of electric car-charging locations also increased, the research showed, but Ausgrid electric vehicle charging and infrastructure head Nick Black said the rollout had not kept pace with vehicle adoption.

Many Australians without access to off-street parking viewed the lack of chargers as an impediment to purchasing an EV, he said, while others were taking risks to recharge their vehicles.

"We're seeing people running extension cords across footpaths, over trees, and I've seen one where a cord was pushed through a drainpipe," he said.

"People are becoming creative in the ways they charge but this is an unsafe practice and people shouldn't have to do that."

Using data from the CSIRO, Ausgrid estimates NSW alone will need 38,000 electric vehicle chargers to support one million electric vehicles on Australian roads by 2030.

To scale up the number of chargers, Ausgrid has proposed the NSW government install more AC chargers on power poles.

The pole-mounted devices could be rolled out at scale and maintained by Ausgrid, Mr Black said, and electricity retailers or charging providers could bill motorists for the power they delivered.

He said the move would require legal changes but could deliver competition and "price parity" with home charging.

"We've got hundreds of chargers but we need thousands of them if we really want to remove the barriers for people purchasing electric vehicles," he said.

The International Energy Agency's 2024 Global EV Outlook report found Australia had one public charger for every 68 electric vehicles while the European Union had one charger for every 14 cars.

However, Ausgrid's EV-charging proposal faces opposition.

A Southern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils submission on the proposal argued against kerbside charging.

If it was allowed, it said councils should receive a share of the revenue.

The number of electric vehicle charging locations in Australia increased from 558 in June 2023 to 1059 in 2024, the Electric Vehicle Council found, while the number of high-speed public charging points jumped by 90 per cent to more than 1800.