Analysis: Australia's push for faster EV uptake will be slow to charge

ACN 650 026 314

17/05/2023 09:12

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      Uncertainty over car emissions standards clouds economics
    

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      Global competition for chargers slows rollout
    

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      Power grid firms struggle to hook up chargers
    

  
    By Lewis Jackson
       SYDNEY, May 17 (Reuters) - Australians are starting to
buy electric vehicles in large numbers, and the government is
trying to accelerate the adoption of cleaner cars, but industry
executives say installing chargers rapidly enough to meet the
boom will not be easy.
    Environmentally conscious Australians keen for electric
vehicles got a boost last month when the government announced
plans to set vehicle emissions standards in the last developed
country bar Russia without them, to help fix a shortage of EVs.
    But public charging infrastructure remains sparse and
under-powered by global standards, according to International
Energy Agency data, a potential deterrent for mass EV takeup in
a vast country where chargers remain scarce outside cities.
    Australia has less than a third the number of public
chargers for every EV on the road compared with the global
average, despite being home to one of the world's most
successful charger manufacturers, Tritium DCFC  DCFC.O .
  
  
        
  
    Challenges obtaining equipment, delays plugging public
chargers into the grid and shaky economics mean a mass build-out
cannot be done overnight, industry executives said.
    "All of that takes a long time, so you won't physically see
chargers popping up everywhere over the next year," said Carly
Irving-Dolan, chief executive of NRMA Energy and Infrastructure.
    NRMA, a motoring services organisation, is partnering with
government to build 135 charging sites across the national
highway network over the next two to three years, adding to the
2,392 sites currently available around Australia.
    After a decade under a conservative government that opposed
EV adoption, the country's Labor government, which won power a
year ago, has launched a national EV strategy and doubled
funding for cleaner transport to A$500 million ($339 million).
    Electric vehicles sales are already trending up, accounting
for 8% of all car sales in April, up from 1.1% a year earlier.
    
    DEMAND UNCERTAINTY    
    Despite the government's EV push, uncertainty remains over
how tough its vehicle emission standards will be. 
    The risk is weak standards leave Australia a dumping ground
for dirty cars, limit the supply of new EVs and undermine the
economics of charge operators, said Geoff Brady, chief operating
officer at electric charger operator Evie Networks.
    "We're building infrastructure in advance of demand to
support the transition. If the cars aren't on the road, that's a
risk for our economics," Brady said.
    If the new standards work to incentivise automakers to
import sufficient clean cars, Australians will finally see a
wider range of EVs in a market where roughly half of all EVs
sold in 2022 were made by Tesla  TSLA.O .
    To help get over the cloudy economics of installing
chargers, the federal and state governments have been helping
fund rollouts, including backing NRMA and Evie Networks. 
    
    PLUGGING IN
    Australia's abundant sunshine and the world's highest per
capita uptake of rooftop solar means home charging is not a
major problem. The challenge is the expansion of public
chargers, especially in regional areas, where the power
infrastructure to support fast chargers is often scarce or
absent.
    The country's public chargers tend to be underpowered, with
0.5 kilowatts of public charging per EV versus an average 2.4 kw
worldwide. 
     
    
    Expansion of public chargers is slow as operators face long
delays connecting to the grid. An Evie report filed to the
government funding administrator in October said the process of
connecting to the grid was "expensive and inefficient".
    BP  BP.L  is aiming for 300 chargers across its petrol
stations in Australia by the end of 2024. The rollout began last
November but was scaled back, in part due to grid connection
issues, said Andrew Worboyes, EV operations manager at BP Pulse.
    Installing multiple chargers or high-powered units can add
up to 12 months to a project, and massive global demand means up
to 18-month waits for ultra-fast chargers ordered today, he
said. Irving-Dolan said NRMA had four- to six-month waits.
    "The lead times are one of the biggest problems that the
average punter who buys an EV and expects to see a fast charger
everywhere doesn't understand," Worboyes said. 
    Numerous studies must be done to make sure chargers, which
often use as much power as several homes or businesses, do not
dim the lights for existing customers, said Ausgrid Chief
Customer Officer Rob Amphlett Lewis, which runs the biggest
transmission network in New South Wales, Australia's most
populous state.
        "It's like the introduction of mass air conditioning in
the '90s and early 2000s, it will take big investment," Lewis
said. 

    ($1 = 1.4743 Australian dollars)

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Australian public charging infrastructure lags major peers
Australian public charging infrastructure lags major peers    https://tmsnrt.rs/3IgYTYK
Australia's public chargers are relatively underpowered
Australia's public chargers are relatively underpowered    https://tmsnrt.rs/3IhqngJ
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 (Reporting by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Praveen Menon and
Sonali Paul)
 ((lewis.jackson@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
@lewjackk))