Goodbye petrol stations, hello charging stations: Ampol and BP begin to dump the pump for electric car chargers

It’s happening - petrol stations are now turning into charging stations with Ampol continuing the rollout of its AmpCharge charging network with the official opening of its Sydney site this week. 

Ampol Woolworths MetroGo in Sydney's inner-city suburb of Alexandria has been offering charging for electric vehicles for the past few weeks but was offically opened on Monday. 

The Sydney location was the first Ampol site to offer charging facilities and has also been joined Queensland’s Carseldine Ampol service station as part of an initial pilot program which will include locations in Belmont, Western Australia, Altona North in Victoria, and another NSW location in Northmead.

Ampol is the first service station in Australia to offer rapid chargers for electric vehicles and says it plans to have 120 sites in operation by December 2023. 

“For over 100 years, Ampol has kept Australians moving with the right fuel in the right place,” Ampol managing director and chief executive officer Matt Halliday said. 

“Today, as the energy needs of our customers evolve and more of us are choosing electric vehicles, Ampol is also transitioning to provide a range of fast and reliable electric vehicle charging solutions. 

“This first site at Alexandria not only represents the beginning of the initial roll out of 120 EV fast charging sites in our retail network, but the first part of our shift to position as a provider of electricity solutions for customers wherever they need them.”

Ampol’s plans of charging domination aren’t confined to service stations either with the company recently announcing that it will also go into the business of providing and installing home and business chargers.

“The delivery of AmpCharge infrastructure on our forecourts will be complemented by new at-destination charging solutions in places like shopping centres, and our home charging infrastructure offer,” Mr Halliday said. 

“We will also leverage our knowledge and strong relationships across industry to provide charging solutions to fleet infrastructure that will support energy transition.” 

The Ampol Woolworths MetroGo Alexandria is located at 133 McEvoy St, while the Caseldine site is at 735 Beams Rd. Both locations offer one 150kW rapid charger each with a CCS2 system for electric cars such as the Tesla Model 3 and the CHAdeMO connector for Japanese EVs such as the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. 

A media spokesperson for Ampol told CarsGuide that pricing for the use of Alexandria location’s charger is $0.60kWh. 

“We are currently working through the pricing strategy for other sites and at home and destination charging,” the spokesperson said. 

Ampol also said it’s mindful of where the electricity used to charge EVs comes from with solar panels and solar batteries to be installed at some service stations. If this can’t be done Ampol will be supplied with renewable energy.

While Ampol is the first service station network to offer this Australia-wide roll-out of rapid charging, you can bet other companies who have sold us petrol for decades aren’t far behind.  

BP currently has 9000 charging points throughout the United Kingdom and will start offering rapid chargers before the end of this year.

“In the next few months BP will begin installing the first of 100 electric vehicle fast chargers on our BP service stations across both Australia and New Zealand, all powered by 100 percent renewable energy,” a BP spokesperson told CarsGuide. 

“This exciting step forward will help accelerate the future of low-carbon transport and give our customers a unique end-to-end customer experience, as well as advance our ambitions to be net zero by 2050 or sooner, and help the world to get net zero.”