Intro to EV roadtrips: actually quite common and hassle free

In 2026 long distance EV road trips are not only possible, but quite common and hassle free.

Our first EV was a Nissan LEAF back in June 2012. There weren’t many EV options back then at any price. The main problem with the LEAF (with its 24kWh battery) was its realistic range of around 130km. This limited how far we could travel to mainly around town, although it did manage a weekly Brisbane to Gold Coast return trip, with a small top up on a regular power point.

We have mainly charged all our EVs at home at night with 100% GreenPower from our electricity retailer or from our rooftop Solar PV during the day. Convenient charging at home is a welcome change from visiting petrol stations.

By September 2019 several more EV options were available, and we purchased a Tesla Model 3.  Its range was around 350km (with its 55kWh battery) and long distance road trips, using the growing new network of high speed chargers, was finally possible.

To test out its viability for road trips, we ended up travelling 8372km in 14 days, with a total charging cost of $7.86.

First, we travelled from the Gold Coast to Cairns and back. The Queensland State Government had built high-speed chargers on the route, roughly every 200km, and at that time it was free. High speed being 50kW, which is around 20 times faster than a home power point, meaning it took 40-50 minutes to charge up around 200km of range. That length of time was good to have a drink, meal, stretch, rest and toilet break.

Apart from getting a tyre leak due to a screw in the last 50km of the trip, the journey was hassle free. The charging process was also easy and we only had to wait once for someone else to finish charging and this was only for 20 minutes.

We then travelled from Brisbane to Melbourne down the Pacific Highway and back inland. This is a much busier route and there were several more charging options. On this trip we mostly used the Tesla superchargers. They were around 100kW, meaning it took half the time to charge up compared to the Cairns trip, that is 20-25 minutes for around 200km of range. The shorter charging times were welcome, although sometimes we were a bit rushed to complete our break because the car was almost ready before we were. These charging stops did not cost us anything because we had some free charging credits from Tesla.

We also used a few NRMA chargers, the same type as the ones in Queensland, which were also free. The only cost we incurred was using another commercial charging network. They were installing ultra-fast chargers, some of which are capable of 350kW, although not many cars can charge that fast yet. We tried one and experienced 100kW charging speed (we have since received a software update which increased our maximum charging speed to 170kW) and spent a total of $7.86.

In subsequent years we drove many times from Brisbane to Sydney and sometimes also to Melbourne.  The high speed charging experience on the Pacific Highway from Brisbane to Sydney and then from Sydney to Melbourne is now generally excellent.

The demise of our LEAF in early 2024 (after 140,000km it was written off, hit ironically by a petrol car) led to the purchase of a Hyundai Kona which has a realistic range of 430km (with its 65kWh battery).

In November 2024 we did a 4137km road trip from Brisbane to Geelong and back for $448.74.

Surprisingly, due to the relatively high cost of electricity at high speed charging stations (we paid 64c/kWh on average), we only saved 11% on fuel compared to the average 6.9litres/100km petrol car with the average price of petrol in that month being $1.77/litre.  So EV fuel savings aren’t worth it?

Most of our EV driving during the year is around town. The cost to charge at home either from our rooftop solar PV (over 90% cheaper than high speed chargers) or by purchasing 100% Greenpower (at 39.56c/kWh it is 38% cheaper than high speed chargers). We definitely save a lot by using electricity instead of petrol over the course of a year, which is dominated by home charging. And that’s before considering savings on EV servicing costs etc.

Now in early 2026 petrol has hit $2.50/litre due to another international conflict. I checked the EV charging costs at the locations of our Geelong trip and found the Tesla supercharger costs had come down by 33% and the other networks had gone up, keeping the total charging cost the same. However the saving compared to a petrol road trip at $2.50/litre has increased from 11% to over 37%.

There have been media reports of some long EV charging queues over the Easter long weekend. We’ve done around 200 high speed EV charges over 7 years and only had to wait to charge a few times. One was a solar farm tour in the regional town of Warwick, when there were lots of EVs in attendance and only one high speed charger available.  It was hardly a surprise. Another time south of Coffs Harbour one of the two high speed chargers was broken and we had to wait for 20 minutes for someone else to finish.

Fortunately, high speed chargers are being built by several companies at a great rate. According to the EV Council the number of locations is growing at more than 20% each year with the number of plugs growing even faster. For example in the Tesla network alone there are at least a dozen sites with 12-20 plugs on the east coast available to all EV drivers.

With more than 500,000 EVs on the road, ensuring more charging options by the day, the future of electric driving in Australia is looking bright.