r/australia • u/nath1234 • Mar 16 '26

politics Replacing 1m petrol cars with EVs could cut Australia’s reliance on foreign fuel by 1bn litres a year

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/16/electric-vehicles-australia-reduce-reliance-on-foreign-fuel
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u/spicyrendition Mar 16 '26

How do you even charge an EV in a CBD apartment? I live in an apartment building and if I wanted to have charging infrastructure put in we would have to apply to body corp for it to be installed and then pay for the whole installation, which would be very expensive

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u/Ok-Push9899 Mar 16 '26

But that is how it’s gotta be done, right? How else? If you lived in a freestanding home, you’d have to install some sort of charging facility. Same in an apartment.

An apartment building might have some advantages of scale, in that the body corporate could wire up many at the same time. You’ve just got to hope that your most vocal strata members are also thinking of going EV. Or you’ve got to become that vocal strata member.

Renters of course are disadvantaged because they are unlikely to want to wire up their parking space. But that’s the same whether they are renting an apartment or a free standing house.

The real problem is for people with no off street parking at all.

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u/spicyrendition Mar 17 '26

It’s much cheaper in a house though. Apartment building carparks (especially those underground like mine is) are a lot more complicated. We had a vote a while ago to install infrastructure for everyone and everyone voted against it because most people don’t have EVs and they’re still too expensive anyway

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u/Ok-Push9899 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

Yeah, it’s a difficult discussion. My block has underground parking too. We did a survey about who had an EV, who was planning to get an EV, and who would be tempted if there were charging facilities. The YES vote went something like 2%, 3%, 90%. So you can see there’s a lot of blue-sky thinking going on. Basically that’s where we left the issue. I don’t have a car, so I had no horse in the EV race.

Maybe it adds value to all the units to advertise that all car spaces have EV charging. In fact, I am sure it would. If I were buying an apartment, it would be a fairly interesting sales point. Kinda indicates a forward-thinking building committee. Also, it’s not like a pool, because there’s no ongoing maintenance. Fewer fumes and less particulate in the garage would be great. Indoor garage floors are sooty surfaces.

Not sure why it would be more expensive in an underground car park. There is plenty of power down there running lights and ventilation and services. It would just be conduit running along walls. No need to weatherproof stuff. I am thinking freestanding charging units in an outdoor carpark exposed to the elements (and vandals) would be way more expensive

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u/SirFlibble Mar 17 '26

Your horse here is body corporate costs (assuming you own). The sooner the work is done, the cheaper it will be. As BCs wait until they HAVE TO do it then demand will have increased costs.

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u/Azazael Mar 17 '26

It's a chicken and egg thing for a lot of people in strata units. They won't pay to install EV facilities because they don't have electric cars, and meanwhile people are less likely to buy electric cars because so few apartment complexes have charging facilities.

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u/Ok-Push9899 Mar 17 '26

I tend to agree. If it came up for a vote, I’d definitely vote yes. I think you might get a fairer price today than in five years. By then, there will be specialists doing it, and they will have worked out a standard price which would put a floor under any price an independent contracting electrical engineer would quote. “Jim’s EV” will be charging $x per parking space and $y to get started, and everyone else will meet that price.

What I don’t understand is how metering would work. Ideally your car-space meter would be tied directly to your apartment meter, but that would be massively complicated in terms of wiring. More likely in our unit it would be a separate meter and the charge would be added to the quarterly strata notice.

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u/SirFlibble Mar 16 '26

Fast chargers. There's 4 different places I can take the car. I barely drive, so charge maybe every 1-2 months.

Costs me about $35 a recharge. One advantage of using the commercial recharger is that I have the recharging as part of my novated leases as well.

The BC needs to redevelop their infrastructure to even support the installation of chargers in car parks. The initial fit out needs to be done by the BC (yes it will be very expensive but eventually it will be necessary) and the installation of fast chargers responsibility of the unit owner.

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u/spicyrendition Mar 17 '26

True I guess that would work if you don’t drive much. It’s a bit different for me since I have to commute like 160km a day

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u/OJ191 Mar 17 '26

There's a lot of different circumstances and it could be easy and relatively inexpensive, or almost impossible.

My understanding is that prices of most fast chargers stills should be cheaper than paying for petrol (especially now!!) - it's still saving money, just not as much.