Proud local electric vehicle owners rolled up at the Newstead enviro shop last Friday to show off their respective wheels, exchange notes and celebrate World EV Day.
World EV Day, September 9, is a global movement of EV owners and is now in it’s third year.
It was the first time the Newstead enviro shop had played host to a local celebration of the day but after a strong turnout by 22 EV owners and their respective 13 different evs, the business’ owner Frank Forster says it’s likely to be the first of many such annual gatherings.
“We had everything from Nissan Leafs all the way up to high end Teslas and Jaguars,” Frank says.
“People are basically in love with their EVs and the reasons include that they require very little servicing, the cost savings in terms of paying for fuel, and their performance.
“But there are still some issues with charging infrastructure including reliability and location.
“We’ve surveyed all of the owners that we have contact with and through a whole lot of questions we’ve got some useful data.
“Some of the key takeaways are that the EV owners we’re in contact with are all driving at least 250 ks a week and the majority are driving 250 to 500 ks a week.
“And another key finding is that 90 per cent of their charging is being done at home.”
Frank also says there are strong anecdotal indicators that a high proportion of non ev drivers plan to make their next car purchase an ev.
The Newstead enviro shop offers a “medium speed” charging station which drivers are typically using for “top ups”.
But Frank confirmed he’s now actively planning to upgrade it, before the end of this year, to something a little faster – “although we are restricted in terms of power supply to AC charging ,” he says.
Friday’s local World EV Day gathering represented a great opportunity for local EV owners to compare experiences and share useful info, and happened as Mount Alexander Shire Council got in touch with the Mail to confirm that Castlemaine’s public EV charge station, sited behind the Visitor Info Centre, has finally been updated to enable simultaneous charging of two vehicles at once.
“While dual chargers were installed, it’s only since the beginning of September that two cars have been able to charge at the same time,” a council spokeswoman confirmed late last week.
“The power to these chargers is 100% renewable.”