A good sign of the progress made in electric vehicle adoption in Australia is the continued rollout of DC fast charging infrastructure to more locations. One of the newest locations is Chiltern, VIC a small regional Victorian town with a population of just 1,580 people (2021 census).
When Electric Vehicles first started arriving in Australia, charging infrastructure kicked off at strategic locations along our highways and in our largest cities. Over time, more of our regional cities also received EV charging investments.
We’re now in Q2 2024 and it’s time to fill in the gaps, the locations that aren’t don’t always see large volumes of traffic, but are important if you want to support the number of EV owners to visit the town.
The new DC Fast Charger location is from charging provider Evie Networks which is aggressively rolling out charging infrastructure, with more than 200 locations across the country. Their infrastructure is often thanks to grants from AEMO to help solve the chicken-and-egg problem for potential EV owners. Knowing there is fast, convenient fast charging available as well as cheaper home charging options, helps potential EV owners know they’ll be free to travel without concern.
Personally, I have family in Chiltern and coming from Wodonga, just 35kms away, I certainly don’t need to use the charger when I get there, but those coming from Melbourne or even NSW, may be travelling to Chiltern as a destination (like next weekend’s Off-Grid Festival) and want to charge when they arrive.
The new Chiltern location of the Evie Charger looks to be really close to opening, with the Tritium charger installed, and the two parking bays clearly painted. It is likely the final wrapping will come off when the site is electrified, often something that requires energy provider AusNet to enable.
The charger features a CCS2 and CHAdeMO connector, which supports almost 100% of the EVs vehicles on the road. Given the shift away from CHAdeMO it is surprising to see we’re still rolling out new chargers without dual-CCS2 connectors.
For those looking to visit the Chiltern EV Fast Charger from Evie Networks, it’s located in the car park behind the Chiltern Library.
Another regional Victorian town of Rutherglen is also close to opening featuring an RTK75 Tritium unit, so it’s probably safe to expect the same speeds in Chiltern.
Jeez – even in places where almost everyone can or could do most of their EV charging or topping-up cheaply at home and off-peak overnight or at their workplace for free our media STILL talks obsessively, conformingly and blindly only about public EV charge-points and the ostensible permanent lack thereof !
Paul G