When Katrina Nelson decided to go on a weekend away to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast in late January, she wasn’t expecting to have any charging problems.

She and her partner, who also owns a Tesla Model 3, live in Brisbane and have been on lengthy trips to Adelaide, the snowfields in Victoria and regional NSW, with no issues at all. But on this occasion, she came across four EV charging stations in a row that were not working. And eventually she found herself on zero charge.

Three 50kW fast chargers were out of action – at Cooroy, the Noosa Blue resort and a local parking station. With just 2 per cent left in the tank she headed for Noosa Brewery, which has some Tesla destination chargers.

They weren’t working either, but the brewing folk ran out an extension cord, plugged her into a socket and “trickle charged” long enough for her to get her car to the nearby RACV resort, where she found a destination charger that added enough charge for her to find her way to a Tesla supercharger for the return home to Brisbane.

“It all turned out fine,” Nelson tells The Driven. Thankfully, she wasn’t in a rush, and managed to have lunch (at the brewer), go for a swim (at the resort), and then do some shopping (near the super charger) as she navigated her way through the different charging options. Others might not have been so foregiving.

“I went to three different types of chargers, and three different apps. That’s not for everyone,” she says. “It made me realize that I should have charged overnight, and if I hadn’t had a Tesla I would have been really stuck. I don’t trust the public network any more.”

Nelson’s experience – of finding four chargers in a row that were not working – was pretty extreme, and thankfully rare. But there is growing concern among EV users, and furious discussion on social media groups, about the number of EV charging stations that are out of order – due to either recent flooding events, damage, or equipment failures and missing parts.

Australia already suffers from two major problems when it comes to electric vehicles. The first is that it is now nearly impossible to buy an EV without a long wait time, if you can get one at all. That’s partly due to a complete failure of federal policy. See: Look who’s ruining the weekend now: Why it’s so hard to buy an electric car

An offering of the award winning Hyundai Ioniq 5s last week sold out within six and a half minutes. If you want the top-selling Tesla Model 3, you need to wait nine months. An EV6 could likely take years.

The second problem is the lack of charging infrastructure. If you do have an EV, this is a major issue if you have no offstreet parking and can’t charge at home, or if you are on a long trip. It’s hard enough finding an EV charger in the first place, and matters are often made worse by queues, or the fact that the charging station is not working at all.

Some of the recent examples are the direct result of floods. Tesla has by far the most extensive network of super charging and destination chargers in the country, and the world, and its network is considered to be pretty reliable.

But its super charging stations at Harwood in northern NSW (four charging spots) and at Toombul in Queensland (six charging spots), were both under water in the February floods and are still off line after a month.

The Tesla superchargers in Brisbane, near Tesla’s display and repair centre, were also offline for nearly a week because of flooding. And the floods also claimed a 50kW Tritium fast charger at the Queensland University of Technology.

The ChargeFox super fast chargers at Toombul were also impacted by the floods, and remain offline, and could be for months. It now also has a warning that its installations at Ballina and Coffs Harbor facilities are also subject to flooding, and should be avoided if they are.

It makes you wonder if all EV charging stations are being put in the right place. But that’s not the only problem. There also appears to be a fundamental issue with reliability and sourcing spare parts for repairs. And it is only getting worse.

The Byron Bay region, where this author lives, has been blessed by a number of free fast charging options, but these have become dramatically reduced by faults and outages in recent months.

A free 50kW charging facility at the Byron Bay library, installed by council, has been offline for nearly three months, and one of the two NRMA 50kW chargers at The Farm has been offline for a month. Both faulty charging stations are made by Tritium.

A look through the EV charging stations in the ChargeFox App paints a sorry picture, with more than one dozen charging stations out of action.

This is not the whole story, but the list of such a huge number of outages and faults is shocking enough. (These images were recorded on Sunday, March 27.) Many of the issues are compounded by the lack of available spare parts.

Martin Andrews , CEO of Chargefox, admits that it is not a good look for ChargeFox, which as the network operator is the public “face” of the network, even though it is dependent on third party suppliers.

“We are hyper aware that drivers are frustrated and we want to support them as best we can,” he told The Driven. “We are the face of the network, and drivers get angry with us. We are doing what we can. We are working very hard to try and fix it. It’s not falling on deaf ears.”

Andrews cites a multitude of issues. The fallout on logistics from the Covid-19 pandemic that has afflicted many industries, the global boom for EV charging stations, and the difficulties sourcing parts from equipment suppliers such as Tritium, which has also been busy with its recent IPO.

“In Australia, Tritium is the most installed fast chargers in the country,” Andrews says. “We are speaking with them a couple of times of week. The lead times for parts and repairs are very long. We end up frustrated as an operator as well.”

Andrews adds that ChargeFox often does not own the chargers within its network. They are operated by other groups, including councils.

One of the more frustrating situations in Sydney has been the repeated outages at two charging stations – Eveleigh and Zetland in the southern suburbs.

One frustrated EV owner told The Driven that funds allocated to EV charging infrastructure needed to be tied to minimum maintenance standards to funding.

“Having 2 stations (at a location) is great but if one is out and spare parts are not available for months then we are back to where we started. We can’t have situations like Eveleigh which is nearing a year out of action for a charger.  Tritium needs to make spare parts readily available.”

Tritium has previously warned of supply constraints, which could affect both installation times for new chargers, and sourcing spare parts.

Earlier this year, CEO Jane Hunter said demand is outstripping supply, and the ability to ramp up production to fill that demand is tied in with global supply chain and logistics issues. The company said at the time shipping delays had trebled delivery times for the company.

In response to The Driven’s questions, Tritium says it is also aware of the “chatter” on social media, and says it is working with Chargefox to resolve the supply constraints, particularly in semi-conductors, that continue to plague the industry.

It also said its chargers are currently trending at an “average uptime in our Pulse system that is among the global leaders for DC fast chargers,” and our new range of modular, scalable chargers are achieving even higher average uptime rates in Pulse.

“DC fast chargers use advanced power electronics technology and high utilization cycles, and wear and tear with age will mean some small percentage of the global fleet is unavailable,” it said.

“For this reason, as well as the fact that most public EV charging sites are not staffed (unlike petrol stations), we recommend that our charging network customers roll out more than one charger at a charging location so that drivers are always able to access rapid public charging equipment.”

Clive Attwater, from Electric Highway Tasmania, notes some of the issues on EV charging availability comes down to the inability of local councils to manage and operate fast charging stations they have installed.

That’s because, Attwater says, they have not budgeted for it, and often provide charging for free, so when a $2,000 bill comes through, as it did recently when someone ran over the connectors at Geeveston in southern Tasmania, they are not prepared.

Geeveston was out of action for several months in late 2021, and after coming back online is out of action again. The council has now tendered for another party to maintain the facility.

Attwater says connectors are generally good for 15,000 connections before being replaced. In Europe, they are routinely replaced every year, which is a $2,000 a year cost that few budget for.

Attwater says he checks his company’s network “eight to 10 times a day” to make sure all are working. Faults sometimes arise, but they often sort themselves out. Sometimes it’s the users fault, often due to being new to the technology.

“We had one Tesla who went around the state, and complained that none of the chargers were working. It turned out he had a problem with his socket. He thought it was our fault, but it was his.”

But Attwater concedes that in general, the ease of use and reliability of fast chargers are not as high as it should be. Tesla has fewer problems because it controls what’s at both ends of the cable – it allows only Tesla vehicles to use Tesla chargers (although this is changing in Europe).

And those networks that do offer general use have to deal with multiple protocols from a multiple of different EV makers.

“At our sites, we have some issues with different makes and models, with some voltage variations and timeouts. We sometimes get quirky situations where a Japanese grey import will only charge if another EV is hooked up at the same facility.”

Nelson meanwhile, says she has learned her lesson. She usually does most of her charging at home, with the help of her rooftop solar system. But from now on, when she travels, she won’t miss an opportunity to charge when she can, such as overnight at places she is staying.

“I love the car, I have no regrets at all,” she tells The Driven. “Next time I will build in more contingency, however I’m confident the infrastructure will only get better and that I just had an unlucky run.”

Got any new information about EV charging problems? Email us at [email protected], Australia’s leading source of news, stories and analysis about the transition to EVs.

Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.

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