Australia should follow the British lead and introduce service standards for public charging networks, the leader of the premium EV brand Polestar has urged.
Scott Maynard argues the move is needed to help ensure the EV transition is achieved in the most efficient and painless manner possible.
Right now such service standards are not in place and there is no shortage of EV public charging horror stories in Australia to justify their introduction.
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“We really need to see the introduction of things like service standards for public charging infrastructure,” the managing director of Polestar Australia told Ev Authority.
And for that, he says, we must look to the Motherland. Yep, the Poms are well ahead of the curve.
“It’s legislated that there has to be 99 per cent uptime (for public EV chargers) and they have to publicly report their service levels,” Maynard explained. “We don’t have that in Australia.”
Clearly not. But if we did, and uptime reliability were enforced, Maynard argues owners’ negative experiences, social media anecdotes of charging frustrations and EV trash talk in mainstream media would plunge.
“I’d still label us (Australia) as transitionary and behind developed markets in Europe and Asia,” said Maynard. “Numbers (of public chargers) are coming up and it’s pleasing to see significant investment by both government and private business.
“But we see today that Australia has 2500 public charging points across the country, of that 120 are ultra fast. By comparison, the UK has 24,000 public charging points and 1600 are ultra fast. Given the size of the UK compared to our geographic footprint, we’ve still got some work to do.”
In the land of warm beer and cricketing disappointment, the Public Charge Point Regulations 2023 was introduced to “ensure that the experience of consumers using public charge points across the UK is consistent and positive. This will support the transition to electric vehicles.”
UK public charger rules include 99 per cent operational reliability, contactless payment (no need to sign up to an app for it to work), a 24 hour helpline and pricing transparency displayed in pence per kilowatt hour.
Fines are necessarily harsh.
For failing to meet the reliability requirement, reliability reporting or contactless payment, each breach attracts a fine up to £10,000 ($20,500). Obstructing any enforcement work attracts a fine up to £250,000 ($513,000).
All sound like perfectly obvious rules and regs, yet Australia has none of these things. Is there any movement for us to follow the Brits’ lead?
“There have been a few little whispers and comments about it, but nothing I would consider serious moves towards either legislating it or mandating it amongst providers of public charge points,” Maynard said.
‘We’re now at a point where we need to introduce that given there are some 2500 (charging) points in Australia; I’d absolutely call for that right now and I think we’d all benefit from that.”
In the UK in 2024, 20 per cent of all new car sales were pure EVs. In Australia, battery electric vehicle sales were 7.4 per cent over the same period.
Without an improvement to public charging infrastructure, Australia’s going to take a long time to catch up.
In June this year, Gold Coast City Council decommissioned 10 EV charging stations, citing unreliability and challenges getting hold of parts.
Brisbane-based high-speed DC EV charger provider Tritium went into voluntary administration in early 2024 (before Indian company Exicom saved it from bankruptcy), following heavy losses and well-reported issues with charger downtime and failure to provide spare parts.
With the likes of RACV, NRMA and RAC replacing their unreliable Tritium chargers, it’s little wonder EV owners who rely on public chargers have experienced frustration and even EV buyer regret for years.
Finnish fast charger brand Kempower has been called upon to replace many of the old Tritium units.
With the shift to (hopefully) more reliable public chargers, now looks the ideal time to replicate what the UK has done and introduce some proper legislation to rebuild trust amongst EV owners and the broader Australian public.
If we’re a country planning to get serious about EV uptake, it should be an absolute non-negotiable.
