What it's really like to drive an electric car EV long distances in Australia

Ever had one of those phone calls where just the tone of the phone makes you think it’s bad news? A recent call fell into that category. The early AM Saturday time-slot further suggested that something was wrong. Indeed it was: An in-law had succumbed to time and ailments and the memorial service was in a few days hence, in a relatively remote area of NSW’s Riverina. And there was me with a Nissan Leaf e+ press car in the driveway. Dare I?

I’d driven plenty of EVs before, but never had I tried to venture beyond the main highways and into the regions where fast-chargers are few and far between. There’s a lot more 'between' than you might imagine when it comes to charging infrastructure in the bush. In fact, from where I planned to leave the Hume Freeway to my final destination, it was exclusively 'between' with not a fast-charger to be found.

On paper, though, it looked as though I could do this. I’d need to charge twice on the freeway and then plug-into a household 10-amp socket (~2.4kW) overnight to get me back to the freeway-centric fast-charge network. From there, it would be another two charges and I’d be home free. In theory.

Again, on paper, the big-battery version of the Leaf looked promising. With Nissan’s own claim of 385km of range, I’d almost be able to do it in one hop if the charge-station was in the right spot and the Leaf could match that range on the freeway. Neither thing eventuated. Here’s a tip; EVs are the opposite of conventional cars when it comes to highway versus city range. Because the EV is frequently regenerating in city traffic, it will actually go farther in that setting than on the freeway where it’s droning along with its single-speed gearbox and not recouping any power whatsoever from deceleration. Certainly, that’s the Leaf experience and while Nissan’s claim is eerily accurate in traffic, on the open road, even in relatively flat country, the range drops to closer to 300km. And that’s pushing it.

So how’d we do? The first thing to do, of course, was to download a couple of the popular charge network apps to get us in the game. Without these, you can’t charge at the fast-chargers, but as with a lot of phone apps, the experience can be frustrating. As with too many apps and websites, there doesn’t always seem to be a whole lot of logic involved in the on-screen navigation process. Throw in the fact that my phone was already full of whatever apps the Samsung designer already imagined I would need, and downloading anything new became a game of delete one thing to add another. And what about a phone with a flat battery of its own or, more likely in my case, a phone that’s AWOL.

Then I decided I’d better make damn sure the damn app worked and I knew how to operate the charging station. To do this, I visited the nearest fast-charger I could find. This involved a round trip of about 20km for no reason other than research, since the charger was nowhere near anything useful such as a supermarket, gelateria or mini-golf course. But I managed to make it work. On one app, anyway. Twenty-seven minutes later, I’d piled in 17.2kW for a total cost of $10.33.

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The catch with the Leaf is that, apart from the three blue lights on the dashboard, you have no way of knowing what’s going on in the charge department. Some fast-chargers display your battery’s charge on the info-screen, some give you this info via the app. But the car itself? To gain such info, you need to climb inside, curse the non-telescopic steering column that leaves the wheel low and liable to tangle with your knees, and then turn the car fully on before you’ll get a meaningful display on the dashboard. A which point, you’ve also turned on the air-con and any other power-sapping equipment that was operating when you parked up.

To get a full display of the car charging, you need to switch the Leaf on.

Using the Leaf to run around in for the next couple of days, also meant trying to keep it as fully charged as I could, since I’d be leaving on a 10-amp household charge which would take hours. Experience also showed that, sometimes, overnight was not enough to achieve 100 per cent, so constantly brimming the battery became the name of the game. That led me to a charging station identified by my app, with an address that was, by any measure, misleading. Called the Cato Street (Prahran) car-park charging station, the entrance was actually on Izzet Street, one block over. The other thing my app neglected to mention was that it was a pay-by-the-hour parking station and that even though the charging was free, I would end up paying (on a Sunday, even) about the same for the parking ($6.70) than I would have for the meagre 14.4kW I extracted from the grid in the two-hours-plus I was there (the Leaf can only charge at about 7kW per hour on this AC connection, despite the advertised “up to 22kW per hour”).

At least I now knew that I could get a relatively fast charge into the Nissan when I needed to (infrastructure willing) so it was time to set sail. The catch now was that I started the day at the first new-car press launch I’d attended in about two years thanks to Covid. And that overnight launch had me leaving around mid-morning with around 90km of mainly urban travelling to get back to home base, grab everything and everybody and set off again. That led me to make sure I had an absolutely full battery when I left the launch, and that required making a special arrangement with management of the conference centre to leave my car somewhere overnight where it could be plugged into the grid. Eventually, I was allowed to park around the back, next to the machinery-shed and workshop where an extension lead had been left for me. Not exactly driving up to reception and parking somewhere convenient, was it? To be fair, a lot of accommodation and business centres now have dedicated EV charge points, but not this one (at this stage; it’s all changing). This also highlighted the messy arrangement of the Leaf’s charging cords which live in a separate net and a case within the hatch. Mine were soon living loose in the boot like a pair of tangled rubber snakes.

On the way back home, I stopped at my office for an hour or two and instinctively plugged the Leaf into the mains there. Constantly having the vehicle on charge was becoming an obsession. By the time I reached home, I had 84 per cent of my full charge; more than enough to get me to the first fast charger I’d short-listed on the Hume Freeway at Avenel. Reaching Avenel, however, took far longer than I anticipated, thanks to a truck crash earlier which had destroyed the bitumen in one lane and had the crews out fixing it with the freeway down to one lane in heavy traffic. Scratch another hour. At least the Leaf wasn’t using any charge just sitting there waiting for the next idiot to zoom up alongside in the lane about to close and then barge in on top of me. The Leaf is not an intimidating looker.

We reached Avenel with 44 per cent charge remaining and pumped in 23.1kW in just 24 minutes taking me back to 80 per cent. Not much point aiming higher than 80 as the dynamics of the battery force a major charging go-slow from that point on. Better to use that time for travelling and recharge a bit earlier. Again, though, the hardware initially didn’t play nice and while the service light on one charge station glowed an optimistic shade of green, the actual info-screen was blank. I moved the Leaf across to the next charger (there were two, both with one Leaf-compatible CHAdeMO charging port each). Paranoia was starting to creep in.

The Leaf features two charging ports.

Now I had a 180km blast up the freeway on a hot afternoon to my next planned charge point at Barnawartha North, just a few hundred metres off the freeway. At one stage, I wasn’t sure we were going to make it, however, and with the air-con on and the cruise set for 110km/h, the volts seemed to be disappearing faster than before. I slowed to 100 and switched off the air, but, to be honest, the freeway consumption of about 30km per 10 per cent of battery, didn’t seem to vary much. Eventually, I wheeled into the roadhouse at Barnawartha North at about 7pm and with just 28 per cent charge remaining.

Switching to my second app, I pumped in 31.7kW in one-hour, nine minutes, well below the 50kW per hour suggested by the hardware, but taking me back to 78 per cent - at a cost of $12.69 - plenty to get me from the roadhouse to the in-laws’ farm at Boree Creek, about 100km due west of Wagga. Like I said, relatively remote.

Some fast-chargers display your battery’s charge info via the app.

The Barnawartha charge attracted the attention of a truckie who had run out of log-book hours for the day and was stuck for the night in the car-park of the roadhouse. Our parallel jeopardy was not lost on me. At least we both had somebody to talk to. The truckie was curious but probably figured (correctly) that his (and others’) long-distance driving future would be on hydrogen rather than batteries. And, while there was a couple of tables (one shaded) near the charging station, at least it wasn’t snowing or blowing a gale. It’s also worth mentioning that my app identified the charger as being located at Barnawartha when it’s actually at Barnawartha North (a discrepancy of about four kilometres) and that one of the four chargers there had been offline for more than a month for a 'fault'.

Eventually, about 8.30pm, we set off again for the last 130km/h, arriving at Boree Creek just on 10pm, the threat of suicidal kangaroos overtaking range anxiety for the last 100km/h. I immediately found an extension lead (not ideal, but necessary in this case) and plugged in for the night.

Barnawartha North is a 180km drive from Avenel.

Next morning, I discovered that the extension-cord had been borrowed for something more important by somebody with an appreciation of neither range-anxiety nor blunt-force trauma. I silently considered Boree Creek’s village status as being pretty safe. I checked the state of play: Seventy-eight per cent charged. More than enough to get me to the funeral and then to Albury to my own family’s HQ where I could charge up at leisure on Mother’s solar panels.

So, off to the funeral, soft-shoeing it but feeling safe in the range I had. Until a shriek from the back-seat told the story of the camera that had been left on the kitchen table. A U-turn and another seven per cent of charge and we were back at the graveyard.

Barnwartha North to Boree Creek is 130km.

From Boree Creek I headed to Albury, made it with 34 per cent remaining and plugged in. Next morning, I was at 95 per cent, but with a few errands throughout the day, I was back into the 80s by day’s end. Back in the family garage, I plugged in again, and hoped nobody asked for a joy-ride, mainly so I could leave early next morning with 100 per cent showing on the battery icon.

Any further running around occurred in my mother’s car with her at the wheel. Only those who have seen her creaky Toyota Starlet in person and experienced her equally sketchy grasp on vehicle dynamics and the Road Traffic Act will understand the magnitude of the sacrifice I made in the name of electron conservation. But that’s the point: the desire to keep the Leaf plugged in so that it’s useable when you really need it, compromises the normal amenity we ascribe to cars. From my point of view, anyway.

Boree Creek is 126km away from Albury.

My route back to Melbourne took me most of the way back to Boree Creek (to pick up Mrs Morley) and then back to the Hume Freeway at Barnawartha North. I rolled into the roadhouse and sidled up to the charge point with 45 per cent remaining. And that’s when technology bit. I hooked up to the very same charger I’d used just four days earlier, hit the go button on the app and listened as a few things whirred and clicked inside the charger. I took a seat at the table and checked the app for progress. Except the app was telling me the charge session had stopped at 0.17kW. A check back on the charger revealed that it thought there was an 'internal fault'. What? With the car or the charger? More info was not forthcoming.

I unhooked, moved the car to the second charger and tried again. Exactly the same: 0.17kW, internal fault. So it must be the car, right? Great. But still I tried, moving to a third charge-point (rated at 50kW/h rather than the first pair’s 350kW) and plugged in. And bingo, away went the app, past the dreaded 0.17 and into whole numbers. Success.

In 38 minutes, I’d added 25.7kW to my batteries at a cost of $10.27 - taking my total to 85 per cent - and even chatted to a Tesla Model 3 owner who’d pulled in for some volts. I warned her about the glitch, but the same charger that had rejected me was perfectly fine with her car. But, she told me, she’d had similar problems in other locations and, even though she was new to EVs and liked them generally, she was having serious thoughts about removing the current for-sale advert for her ICE vehicle, purely on the basis of EV’s infrastructural mayhem.

I used pay-charging stations to the tune of 120.8kW of power at a total cost of $60.97 on this trip.

Hitting the highway again, I was headed for my last charge of the journey, back at Avenel. This involved crossing the fairly hectic freeway to get to the roadhouse and, again, the info screen on one charger was kaput. The charge went fine (23.1kW in 24 minutes for $13.84) until I tried to disconnect. At which point the Leaf wouldn’t release the coupler.

For security, the Nissan locks the coupler to the car, and releasing it requires you to press the button low on the dashboard under the steering wheel. But because the button is grouped with others and the Leaf’s front door is hinged relatively rearward, getting to the button means walking around the door and almost getting back inside, rather than simply reaching in from the side. Small beer, but annoying.

In any case, it didn’t work, and only after four attempts to decouple did the Nissan finally relinquish its grip on the lead. Crisis averted and who knows what I would have done had the pair refused to divorce. Especially since it was now almost 5.30pm on a Sunday. But I was home free.

Nissan claims the Leaf has 385km of driving range.

And it seems I’m not the first to experience this. Evie’s own website has a troubleshooting section which includes advice on what to do when this exact problem crops up. And I quote: "…tap the connector with something, for example a phone, in order to release the jammed latch". Yeah, right. A metaphor for the whole experience, perhaps.

So what did I learn? Firstly, that while I’m happy to admit that EVs are here to stay and will eventually take over the world, Australia is not ready for that yet. I also learned that the Nissan Leaf in e+ form is a car I’d be happy to drive daily. I liked its compliant ride, its manners generally and I really appreciated the stomp in roll-on acceleration which makes it a safe overtaking car for the open road. Ah, the open road. Yep, that’s where EVs fall down right now. The lack of infrastructure and consumer trust in the network simple makes the EV an act of faith too far. A person with my driving habits would still need a second, ICE-powered car and, if I have to own such a thing, it’ll do me for daily duties, too.

The other thing I learned was that running an EV is not the big money saver we like to think it is. Maybe it will be, and if you use your solar array at home or some of the free council-provided charging stations (both are the slow option, however) then it can work out cheaper. But if you charge your car at home at night when the solar is not cranking, or you opt for a fast-charger from a commercial operator, then things change.

My Chargefox account sold me power at 40 cents per kWh. That’s consistent with my home peak-period tariff of 37.46 cents per kWh. But the Evie network charged me 60 cents per kWh, a whopping 50 per cent premium. At that point, the 20kW I needed to travel every 100km, was costing me $12. Compare that to a roughly equivalent petrol SUV, say, a Nissan Qashqai, which will use about 7 litres per 100km on the freeway, and would, based on $1.70 per litre at the pump, cost me $11.90 over the same distance. And the Qashqai costs about half the price of the Leaf e+.

Fox on the run.

In total, I used pay-charging stations to the tune of 120.8kW of power at a total cost of $60.97 on this trip. Keep in mind that number doesn't include any extra slow charging done off of a home socket.

Of course, many council chargers and all of Evie and Chargefox’s fast chargers use renewable power (not that you’d know it from Evie’s website, even though it’s part funded by a $15 million grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and that means zero emissions. Which is why the EV juggernaut won’t – and shouldn’t – be stopped. None of which alters the fact though, that, based on one interstate trip, this guy is not ready for an EV. Yet.