I’m pretty fond of the regional Victorian city of Wodonga, it’s been my home since the year 2000 and 19 years on, plenty of other people agree, it’s a great place to live (or at least visit). The location is important as we talk about ev ranges, Wodonga holds an important geographical location in context to trips down the east coast of Australia.
Located at Logic, Wodonga is 4 rechargers, as part of the Chargefox recharging network being rolled out across the country. Not all charging stations are created equal, with the two on the left offering 50kW of power, while the ones on the right will offer 350kW, making it one of only just a couple of locations in the country with the fastest charging speeds.
Right now the ultra-rapid recharging can provide 175kW to 2 vehicles simultaneously. That’s an important detail given there aren’t actually any vehicles currently on sale that support the 350kW standard. That will change with Porsche’s Tycan is released. Porsche say they’re only making 20,000 of them in the first year and they’re already sold out. With their 500km+ of range, having a 350kW charger means they’ll add 400km of range in just 15 minutes.
For the past week, I’ve been driving the Jaguar I-PACE which supports the 50kW charging and with an upcoming firmware update, will double that to support 100kW, which will almost halve the recharge time for road trips. The recharge location at Wodonga, while slightly out of town, provides a great connection to the electric superhighway between Melbourne and Sydney.
While the Chargefox network is currently free to use at Wodonga and Euroa, eventually the amount of kW you draw from the site will cost you a few dollars, still far below the price of filling up a tank of petrol with your ICE vehicle.
The ultra-rapid Terra HP chargers are actually made by ABB, the same company that sponsors the Formula E. This model supports 2 charging types, both the CCS Type 2 standard found in the IPACE, as well as the CHAdeMO DC fast charging.
As we look to the future of Australia’s electrification of it’s transport network, Chargefox did a smart thing by selecting the best charging technology now, as they have a total of 21 sites scheduled to be launched before 2020.
