Best 100kW+ EV fast chargers for Christmas, Easter and school holiday trips between Sydney, Canberra, Albury and Melbourne

There are many fast chargers that provide open access for all brands or electric vehicles between Sydney, Canberra, Albury and Melbourne on the internal route.

I’ve used a lot of them and these are my thoughts on the fast charging sites I recommend using during road trips with modern EVs that have decent peak charge rates of at least 100kW.

There are also a fair number of 50kW EV chargers along the way, but I wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re not in a rush because it will take literally an hour to add 50kWh to your battery, plus any time you wait for Someone else finishes it. And leave.

Likewise, it is only recommended to use 75 kilowatt sites if you are the only person using them. If two cars are connected to a single 75 kW charger, they will both only get half the charging rate, which is very slow. We hope that BP Pulse will upgrade its 75kW sites to 150kW sites as soon as possible.

Tesla campbelltown catholic club

This site has 12 x 250kW CCS 2 slot charging so there is plenty of capacity and speed but this is balanced out by the high price of 0.85 cents/kW. Tesla reduces the price if you have a charging subscription with them.

For this reason, I only recommend this site if you don’t care about the cost or don’t have any other options because other nearby chargers are down, have long lines or have only a few percent of battery left.

The images below are courtesy of Ivan who previously wrote an owners review of his 2022 Volvo XC40 Recharge on Electrifying Everything.

Northern and southern pheasants nest

Both of these twin locations on either side of the Hume Expressway have Italian-made Alpitronics HyperChargers with 6 EV charging slots (6 CCS cables + 3 CHAdeMO cables).

This means that 6 modern EVs using CCS 2 ports can be quickly charged at the same time if the Nissan Leafs are not using CHAdeMO cables.

The chargers are located under artistic structures with partial shade that you can hide under in case it rains, and are covered with solar panels that provide some of the site’s power.

There are very good new, clean toilet facilities and several food outlets which have a mix of fast food, proper meals etc depending on what you want.

There is a high risk of ICEing at this location as Ampol has placed the charging site directly in front of the Foodary entrance. When I visited the Kia Niro EV I was testing, two of the six charging bays had gasoline-powered cars parked there for some time.

There were no signs at the electric car charging places that I could see indicating parking rules. Every surface of the charging slot says “Impulse ImpactCharge. There is no clear sign that says “Only for charging electric vehicles.”

NRMA Chargefox Goulburn and Evie Sutton Forrest

Until recently, these were the most popular stops before Sydney went north and also South Sydney for those traveling long distances, as both had 4 chargers as well as fast food restaurants and decent toilet facilities.

Of the two Evie Sutton Forests, the site is nicer with dual 4 x 350 kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo chargers, plus takeaway facilities and toilets meters away.

In comparison, Chargefox Goulburn is located in an unsightly back corner behind the service station next to the bottle and can recycling area. It is a combination of CCS 2/CHAdeMo 350kW and 50kW dual chargers which are getting old and therefore break down quite often.

You can watch a video below of me charging my Hyundai Ioniq 5 Dynamiq at Evie Sutton Forest.

ENGIE Chargefox Royal Australian Mint and Tesla South Point Tuggeranong

These two charging locations are convenient if your journey starts, ends or passes through the ACT/Canberra.

Residents and tourists driving non-Tesla electric vehicles did not have many options for properly fast chargers until August 2023 when Engie/Chargefox activated 6 charging plugs at the Royal Australian Mint and Tesla opened its South Point Tuggeranong location to non-Tesla.

Five of the Royal Australian Mint’s chargers are CCS 2 which can be used by the vast majority of Australian EVs and one is CHAdeMo which will likely only be used by Nissan Leafs and EVs imported from Japan.

Thanks to 2023 BMW iX1 owner Brent and his dog 🙂 for sending me great photos of the Royal Australian Mint chargers and making a clever note:

“The chargers seem to be dynamic depending on the capacity available – when I arrived they said 75 kW, at the end they said 150 kW.”

Tesla South Point Tuggeranong has six CCS 2 Tesla 250kW superchargers which as usual are more expensive than other charging networks but it is still good that they are available as an option if the Royal Australian Mint options are all busy/down.

Together across the Chargefox and Tesla charging networks, the new availability of these 11 CCS 2 ultra-fast chargers will make public fast charging much easier for Canberrans who own a non-Tesla electric vehicle as well as tourists visiting the nation’s capital in a non-Tesla electric vehicle.

NRMA Chargefox Gundagai

All three chargers at Chargefox Gundagai were broken the last time I drove by, so I didn’t use this site. At the time of writing, only the 50 kW charger was working and the 350 kW charger was out of order.

I would avoid this shipping site if possible. Like the NRMA Chargefox Goulburn, chargers are aging and often slow or broken.

Evi Ampoule Tarkuta

This is a much nicer site than the Chargefox Gundagai with its 350kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo chargers.

The service station has good toilets, snacks for sale, etc. I enjoyed standing in the shade at the servo with some ice cream while filling up my car.

RACV Chargefox Barnawartha North

This four charging site is a great place to fill up the 22km before arriving in Albury heading north / after leaving Albury heading south.

It is a very rare example of an Australian highway fast charging station for electric vehicles which has a nearby shelter as well as a picnic table. Shade and seating should be made mandatory as part of government grant funding.

It is also a rare example of a charging station with mixed brands of charging units. The two 350 kW ultra-fast CCS 2/CHAdeMo coupled synchronizers are ABB and the two 50 kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo dual synchronizers are Tritium.

The BP service station located a short walk away has fast food options and good toilets.

RACV Chargefox Euroa

This Four Chargers location is very popular as there are many cafes and fast food restaurants here as well as a service station and good toilet facilities. There are two ultra-fast 350 kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo and two 50 kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo.

Unfortunately, like the NRMA Chargefox Gundagai and NRMA Chargefox Goulburn, these chargers are old and plagued with issues. At the time of writing, the two 50-kilowatt plants are idled and the two 350-kilowatt ultrafast plants are restricted to 100 kilowatts each.

Chargers are poorly located at the busy entrance to the parking lot, so it can be difficult to get in and out safely. Surely being in the parking lot on a quiet corner would make more sense?

In the middle of the peak summer Christmas driving period, I was lucky to get the rightmost 50kW charger, the only one shaded by a tree.

Even if it was working despite the great dining and restroom facilities, I would skip this location during peak road trip times of the year due to the high likelihood of standing in line and people slowly charging to 100% while eating. My family self-catering from our store so we don’t need to buy food.

Evi Ampoule Avenil

Located 39 km south of Euroa, this is a good option if there are charging queues on Euroa and you have enough battery capacity to go a little further.

The CCS 2/CHAdeMo Ultra-Fast 350kW Dual Charger Location has one front and one side which means it will be difficult for some drivers to charge depending on where your charging port is located (left/right/front). With the MG ZS EV front charging port, it was really easy.

The service station has good toilets and there is a small table partially shaded by a gum tree where I had my BYO lunch while watching the car charge.

Effy B.B. Epping

Depending on whether you’re heading north or south, this is the first/last high-speed charging location on the northern edge of Melbourne.

There are twin 350kW CCS 2/CHAdeMo ultra-fast chargers with space clearly available next to them for several more units in the future if this location is popular. This site has a bad reputation because one of the two charger units is unreliable.

The service station has good, modern and clean toilets with healthy and traditional fast food cafe options and plenty of seating.

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