Tesla driver’s warning to EV owners following 1,200km road trip

Car-loving Aussies looking to take long road trips have oft-expressed concerns about the availability of charging stations for electric vehicle users in remote corners of the country. And while one Tesla enthusiast has since shared details of an epic solo road trip across the country from Brisbane to Canberra, Nathan Merritt has issued an important warning to EV owners looking to do the same.

Merritt, who runs a private driving business, recently revealed the total cost to charge his EV along the way was just $106.02 for the 1,206km journey which took 13hrs 36mins. However, he said there was one major pitfall on his journey, and it relates to non-Tesla EVs.

“I would stick with Tesla,” he told Yahoo News Australia. Tesla superchargers are reportedly the fastest charging option away from the home and can charge up the vehicle in just 20 minutes.

While the pioneering electric car company announced that it would make 30 of its Aussie chargers available to other EV brands, some customers have faced issues with availability and compatibility. Yahoo previously reported that Tesla rivals such as BYD face a “compatibility issue” with some Tesla Superchargers for “vehicles sold after October 2023” and Merritt echoes those concerns.

“While Tesla has opened some of its supercharger network to third parties, not all sites are open in Australia to third-party vehicles” Merritt explained. And when it comes to long road trips, he feels “more confident relying on Teslas Network than any other provider in Australia.”

“If I had done this trip in another third-party vehicle it would have more than likely resulted in longer charging times or waiting for bays to become available,” he added.

Epic 1200km road trip using Tesla Superchargers

During the road trip, Merrit said he would stop every two hours and use only Tesla superchargers to power up his EV.

“20 minutes goes very quickly,” he said. “I spent the time going to the bathroom, catching up on social media, having something to eat, and taking photos of the supercharger site to document my trip.

“On my trip fatigue signs are often visible on the highway suggesting to stop every 2 hrs, this was very welcome in my eyes as a safety perspective and to keep a driver alert on a long journey.”

When it comes to cost, Tesla superchargers are “much more” expensive than charging at home, but “given the total cost and the quick turn around these prices are very reasonable in my eyes.”

Merritt estimates that a smaller petrol sedan, with a 50L tank would cost $87 to fill up and would require “at least two” tanks to do the distance he travelled, making the Tesla journey $68 cheaper.

All the planning it took was checking the Tesla App to plan a route that included Tesla Superchargers for the “quickest pit stops”.

He added that the journey was “pretty easy” and can’t wait to do another road trip from Brisbane to Sydney later this month.

Compatibility issue unlikely to be resolved anytime soon

EV expert Hussein Dia, Professor of Future Urban Mobility at Swinburne University, previously told Yahoo that compatibility issues for EV chargers is likely to stick around because there is “not a single global standard for EV chargers today.

“It would help our collective global transport decarbonisation efforts if the standard can be unified. That would be something important to have in the future and would require collaboration between manufacturers to adopt a single standard.”

In Australia, several EV charging standards exist and there is not yet one charging plug to rule them all. Drivers have been encouraged to do their research when it comes to finding a bay to plug-in and juice-up to avoid disappointment.

But some major charging networks like Evie, AmpCharge, Jolt and Exploren support all standards, though it varies from location to location. The CCS2 charger plug — used by Tesla — is the current de facto standard in Australia. A comprehensive breakdown of EV charger plugs and supported models can be found here.