Woodend and Kyneton house-hunting

Today we drove out through the towns of Woodend and Kyneton, Victoria. Beautiful towns, even on a cold windy day. We’re still looking for a possible new home. We looked at one house at Kyneton Bushland Resort. Another house had 14kW of solar panels, a Tesla Powerwall house battery and a Tesla EV charger.

Lunch at Home Grown on Piper was delicious.

We bumped into the owners of a blue Tesla Model Y with the licence plate BEM3UP (“beam me up”) at one of the houses and at the Kyneton charger. Of course we discussed Star Trek 🖖.

Also had a brief chat with Tony, on a ride on his electric Harley Davison LiveWire, with his other biker mates.

Charging

Kyneton and Woodend each have a 50kWh DC fast charger by Evie Networks. Disappointingly only one at each location, which can create queuing. We were only plugged in for a few minutes while using the adjacent toilet, so we were finished anyway when the next person arrived.

We’ve been trying out the beta version of Evie’s new app, which is improving. But this one seemed to lack a “Stop Charging” button, so I submitted a bug testing report.

Tony had trouble getting his app to connect. I wonder if that was just the phone carrier. I’m using Belong (a cheaper branch of Telstra). I saw someone else had trouble connecting their phone to the internet using Vodafone. This reminds me that I should order an Evie and Chargefox payment card, in case I’m ever at a charger with a failing app/internet connection.

11 comments

James Mackness via Facebook ↗ 24 Jun 2023

Just order an Evie card, you can register the same card number for the Chargefox network. One less card to carry and when I ordered Evie was free and Chargefox cost $10. 😉

David Pryce via Facebook ↗ 24 Jun 2023

James Mackness Thanks! I didn’t realise you could register the Evie card for the Chargefox Network. Great tip.

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1. Michael Selge via Facebook ↗ 3 Jul 2023
  
  David Pryce either did I. I’ve got an Evie rfid card already.
  
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Tesla Tripping eTripping.au 24 Jun 2023

James Mackness Oh really? Great advice. I wish we could just use a credit card 🤔.

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1. James Mackness via Facebook ↗ 25 Jun 2023
  
  Tesla Tripping hopefully at some point or just have the charger recognise the car like Superchargers.
  
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2. Scott Cassidy via Facebook ↗ 27 Jun 2023
  
  James Mackness I've read Tesla has there own handshake and 3rd party chargers can't authenticate with Tesla's for plug n charge
  
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3. James Mackness via Facebook ↗ 27 Jun 2023
  
  Scott Cassidy hopefully it's a relatively simple fix for software/hardware for future compatibility. Probably not the end of the world if older cars need to use an app.
  
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Richard Webb via Facebook ↗ 24 Jun 2023

An RFID card kept in the car is a lot simpler to activate charging than having to fiddle with the phone apps.

David Pryce via Facebook ↗ 24 Jun 2023

I’ve ordered both cards (Evie and Chargefox) as it’s just simpler to use them, and not rely on phone app or coverage.

Looks like a lovely day trip from Melbourne. Will try this too.

Neerav Bhatt via Facebook ↗ 25 Jun 2023

Correct you only need 1 RFID card for Chargefox and Evie plus other networks, details here https://www.bhatt.id.au/blog/electric-car-charging-tip-do…

Chargefox via Facebook ↗ 25 Jun 2023

Great update. Here are the details on how to order and use an RFID card. They're great for locations with poor mobile coverage such as remote locations and some underground carparks.
https://www.chargefox.com/charge/rfid/

Charging

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