Charging in Rockhampton, with Marlborough still down
HQ
Charging up at the RACQ Chargefox charger in Rockhampton, Queensland. We couldn’t charge in Marlborough, because that charger is still faulted, listed in the Chargefox app as waiting for parts until January 19, after being broken for a month!
I chatted with Bronwyn and Phil who (with two more of their family, not pictured) had driven their 2020 Model 3 from Brisbane to Mossman Gorge, currently on their way back. They said they had been caught at Marlborough, found the charger not working, and did not have enough charge to get to the next one. It’s a really long stretch out there – even the petrol stations have signs warning “99km to next petrol”, but the gap for EVs is more than twice that. So, they asked at the Marlborough Service Station if they could just plug into the mains supply for a slow charge, to which they said “Sure. We have an open kitchen”. We joked that maybe they broke the charger to increase food patronage 😉. But seriously, thank you for allowing the slow charge 😇.
They had to charge for SIX HOURS to have enough to get to the next charger. RACQ and Chargefox and Mark Bailey MP this is essential infrastructure. If it’s not working, travellers can be marooned. It’s not okay to be in a position where you are “waiting for parts”. You need to have everything needed on hand for repairs, when needed. And more than one DC charger or location.
Bronwyn also suggested that taking one of the indigenous led tours of Mossman Gorge makes the visit there more worthwhile. I’ll remember that for next time.
It's a new technology rolling out to the masses with large capex and unknown ROI. Reliability and availability will come when people figure how to make money off the chargers.
I reckon there would be a SLA involved? How does the SLA look like?
Maybe QLD should be looking at the money invested in unreliable supply and maintenance networks and do some numbers regarding the Tesla supercharger network downtime in the last 10 years?
I'm still happy to fork out the extra cost of using a reliable service.
Went to charge this afternoon where there is only 1 DC charger and was a Tesla Model 3 charging, then a Hyundai Ioniq, now another Tesla Model 3.
Thankfully 2 out of 3 of them checked in on PlugShare so I’ll just go back later.
Most of our charging is done at home from solar and costs 9c/kWh in lost exports it’s basically free.
Like many things parts shortages and labour shortage is meaning things are marking everything take longer.