The Queensland government has called for expressions of interest in building an EV solar powered fast charge highway throughout the state. Initially this would incorporate an existing petrol service station with fast charge facilties for EVs that would employ solar panels as the energy source. It would eventually result in a series of solar powered EV fast charge stations along the Bruce Highway.
A service station located in Oonoonba, a suburb of Townsville, would be the pilot fast charge station to kick things off. The local charge station start up Tritium announced earlier in the year plans to provide a fast charge highway (as reported by MEC in June – click to read). 
It is not clear at this stage how or if this initiative will link in with the Tritium EV fast charge highway.
Tritium have already secured contracts in the US with California based Chargpoint to provide fast charging facilities on both the east and west coasts. They are also building an EV fast charge highway in New Zealand in conjunction with Charge.net.nz. The plan is for around 75 fast charge stations throughout New Zealand to be in place by 2017.
The Queensland government spokes person, Coralee O’Rourke, stated: “Our vision is for this to be the start of an ‘electric super highway’ by facilitating fast-charging service locations for drivers travelling up and down the length of Queensland.”
Despite a lack of federal government interest in EV technology, the momentum towards EVs and infrastructure is clearly beginning to move forward with this recent announcement and the opening of the first electric highway in Western Australia just last month (see our blog post, Australia’s First Electric Highway).
Tesla have announced their own plans for a fast charge network along the east coast for the exclusive use of Tesla owners (free to charge for life).
At MEC we have bemoaned for some years the lack of interest in EVs in Australia with no incentives and a lack of vision in contrast to just about every developed country.
It’s encouraging to see that despite the lack of enthusiasm from our current federal government, the first steps are being taken to bring Australia in line with the rest of the developed world.
Great Article. Looking forward to building and using this infrastructure.
I gotta agree and look forward to the day that the rapid charge network is a reality. I have realised that our energies need to go into fast charging along major highways and should not be waisted on level 2 stations as these, being much cheaper and logistically easier to install, will evolve naturally in any case. Except for businesses wanting to greenwash their image, the real business case is with RAPID DC fast charging. More customers over a shorter time AND price is fixed by the convenience – not the cost of electricity – a bit like bottled water actually. I realised this when reading about the phenomenal success and growth of a Dutch company, Fastned (go to their website).
CEO Bart Lubbers states in his free book ‘The FASTned Story’ –
“It’s quite straightforward : for a greater range you need a larger battery – which, in turn, requires a higher charging speed. Bigger batteries make slow charging more and more redundant; on the long term charging on-the-go will become increasingly attractive” – from The FASTned Story 2014 page 67. Tesla gets this hence their investment in Superchargers. Most new iterations of EVs (LEAF, BOLT etc) are getting more range mainly through larger capacity batteries. The FASTned Story is like TEsla’s – very inspirational.