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A lack of off-street parking is often cited as a barrier to electric car uptake in Australia, with residents in high-density suburbs forced to rely on inconsistent public charging infrastructure in lieu of using their own driveway or garage chargers.
In response to the frustration felt by electric car owners without access to off-street parking, some private companies and local councils are trialling the introduction of publicly available kerbside EV chargers across the country.
In August 2024, Ausgrid announced plans to roll out kerbside EV chargers attached to power poles in New South Wales.
“People who are renting may also be unable to install at-home charging. We know that access to charging is a key barrier to people purchasing an EV. We want to change that,” an Ausgrid spokesperson told Drive.
However, council-approved and operated kerbside EV chargers are still a rarity, forcing some EV owners without access to off-street charging to find creative ways to charge their cars at home.
Here are some of the most outlandish and innovative (and occasionally illegal) EV charging set-ups that have been spotted in Australia.
On November 11, 2024, a BYD owner residing in Newcastle copped online backlash over their dangerous at-home charging set-up.
A listener sent a photo to The Ray Hadley Morning Show on radio station 2GB depicting a BYD Atto 3 SUV being charged on the street, with the vehicle's charging cord running through a storm drain.
As Hadley pointed out, “I don’t know whether he knows that water and electricity don’t mix and could cause him some problems”.
Various Facebook users slammed the driver's actions, with one person stating, “Well that's a disaster waiting to happen, do some people lack good old common sense".
However, some commenters came to the defence of the BYD owner, citing the lack of council support for electric vehicle owners and their charging woes.
“Just goes to show the lack of interest inner-city councils have in EVs, where it becomes impossible to charge one legally and therefore need to take extreme measures.
“There needs to be more charging stations and a better way for people who live in the inner city to charge legally,” a different Facebook user added.
When it comes to finding the right set-up to charge an electric car, one Tesla Model Y owner in Melbourne went fishing for electricity… literally.
As previously spotted by Drive in August 2024, this inner-city resident utilised a fishing rod to cleverly avoid a trip hazard by feeding the charging cables through the pole, creating an arch with plenty of space for pedestrians to walk under.
Unfortunately, Boroondara Council said the DIY at-home charger posed a “safety hazard and breaches Council’s amenity local law”.
“There are currently no approved overhead or across-kerb solutions to provide electric vehicle (EV) charging from residential properties to vehicles parked on public streets in Boroondara,” Daniel Freer, Director of Places and Spaces at the City of Boroondara, told Drive.
“Residents who do not have off-street parking should use any of the expanding number of publicly accessible charging stations located across Boroondara,” Freer advised.
‘Cheaper than a tow truck’
There’s no denying EV owners share a certain camaraderie – something one BYD owner learned earlier this year.
In July 2024, a BYD Atto 3 owner in Victoria ran out of battery just 2km short of the nearest public charger. Rather than call on emergency roadside assistance, a fellow Atto 3 SUV driver passing by stopped and helped the stranded motorist by using the vehicle’s vehicle-to-load (V2L) capabilities.
Simply put, V2L uses electricity from a car’s high-voltage battery to power external devices and appliances, or, in this case, another vehicle.
The friendly exchange between the two EV drivers was posted to BYD Owners Australia’s Facebook page, with a photo of the two cars attached to a series of cables.
As previously reported by Drive, the two BYD owners successfully calculated the amount needed to reach the public charger without the need for a tow truck.
When asked for comment, BYD Australia’s Head of Marketing, Kate Hornstein, told Drive “How great that the community of BYD owners can support each other like this”.
However, both drivers had to utilise aftermarket cables to conduct the roadside charge, with one driver involved in the event telling Drive that they “would like an official emergency roadside charging procedure from BYD with the equipment [needed] to support the procedure”.
In 2022, a photo of a Sydney resident went viral online after it highlighted the extreme lengths some electric car owners have gone to in order to charge in the inner-city.
The image posted by 2GB radio station shows a Tesla owner using a tree to run an extension cable from their house to their Model 3.
In July 2024, a NSW resident was slammed by residents for creating a “desperate” and “dangerous” situation when they decided to use an extension cable to charge their battery-powered SUV on the street.
Keith Bensley – the man responsible for posting the photo of the incident online – said he spotted the set-up on a public street in the suburb of Sawtell, in Coffs Harbour, NSW.
“There was no attempt to put anything over the cable, and it had rained the night before, so it was nice and wet,” Bensley told the ABC.
Regardless of whether an EV owner takes precautionary measures such as covering the extension cord over a footpath, some local councils can still penalise offenders for breaching laws.
In response to an image of a resident using a covered extension cable to charge their Tesla, Port Phillip Council Mayor Heather Cunsolo told Drive:
"Charging an electric vehicle (EV) with a power cord running across a footpath, road or nature strip breaches our Local Laws and poses a risk to public safety, including for those who are visually impaired."
How many public EV charging stations are there in Australia?
There are an estimated 2000 public AC and DC charging stations across Australia, with each location housing anywhere from two to eight charging points.
“The Australian Government recognises the importance of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure in our transition to decarbonise the transport sector,” a Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water spokesperson told Drive.
“That's why we are expanding the rollout of public charging infrastructure through the $500 million Driving the Nation fund.”
The half a billion dollars in funding is said to go towards the development of 117 more EV charging networks located “on key highway routes” at 150km intervals across the country.
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
