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Electricity network providers are lobbying the Minns government to scrap rules preventing them from entering the EV charging market, pointing to a swath of suburbs across Sydney which have little to no access to public chargers as evidence of failure to keep up with surging demand.
The global surge in fuel prices has prompted a rush of interest in the electric vehicle market, with EV makers and dealers reporting a huge increase in customer inquiries since war broke out in Iran.
Despite that, consumer surveys have repeatedly found access to chargers remains a major block for potential EV buyers. While the NSW government has invested $149 million in grants to build new chargers since 2022, public data shows many suburbs across Sydney have little or no access to charging infrastructure.
In some cases, even suburbs which do have charger infrastructure are in locations not accessible to many EV drivers. Wentworthville, in the city’s west, has one publicly listed charging station, but it is located at Wenty Leagues, a club with 545 poker machines.
The club says use of the chargers is restricted to “members and guests to utilise while they enjoy all the services our wonderful club has to offer”. Similarly, in Warwick Farm, in south-west Sydney, the only public charger is at the William Inglis Hotel, and is limited to “customers and guests”.
Suburbs including Fairfield, Carlingford and Epping in the west, Sans Souci in the south, and Jannali and Sutherland in the shire have no publicly listed charging stations.
Others have one charging station: for Guildford, it’s in the car park of a Red Rooster takeaway.
Electricity network providers Ausgrid, Essential and Endeavour have outlined a proposal which they say would allow them to roll out 11,000 new chargers in Sydney and 22,500 across the state.
The poles and wires companies have for months been urging NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe to overturn existing ringfencing laws they say prevent them from entering the market because they require companies such as Ausgrid to maintain separation of the monopoly and competitive parts of their business.
The change raises the prospect of non-EV drivers contributing to the cost of rolling out the new infrastructure, and has been resisted by existing private-market operators such as Evie, which warns it would require cross-subsidisation between consumers.
Documents previously released via freedom of information laws show the network operators have outlined a series of options to the NSW government, including changes which would see customers – including non-EV drivers – pay between $1.60 to $2.10 extra on their energy bills a year.
The government could also fund the rollout at an estimated cost of $135 million, the proposal, first reported by The Australian Financial Review, shows.
Ausgrid says its proposal would turbocharge EV take-up by giving better kerbside charging access to EV drivers, particularly inner-city drivers who live in apartments and so are often unable to charge their vehicles at home.
“We’re hopeful that we’ll get some good news soon,” Nigel Lowry, Ausgrid’s head of logistics and governance, said.
“Particularly when we’re seeing such volatile petrol and diesel prices, greater access to public chargers would make a material difference in EV take-up.”
The government was in the process of compiling an updated EV strategy before the conflict in Iran, but rising fuel costs and the subsequent surge in interest in electric vehicles has raised the prospect of more ambitious changes.
Premier Chris Minns, himself an EV driver, this week cited a lack of access to chargers while saying he wanted to broaden access to the vehicles beyond “snobs that live in the eastern suburbs”.
“It’s got to be available to regular mums and dads, and that means, particularly if they’re travelling and driving for work, they don’t have range anxiety, they can get access to a recharger,” he said.
Sharpe confirmed the government was considering the proposal.
“We are considering all options to support NSW households now, and past this current fuel shock,” she said, saying the updated EV strategy had become “even more important” since the fuel shock.
Her office noted government grants had gone toward the rollout of about 3300 chargers, and that the Electric Vehicle Council rated NSW the top performer in EV policy in 2024.
Harry Li, a shopfitter who lives in Greenwich on the north shore but who travels to work in Lansvale in south-west Sydney, was charging his car at Merrylands Shopping Centre, the only station in that suburb.
“It’s very inconvenient,” he said. “It’s difficult to find them. We had a job in Merrylands this morning, but there is nothing in Lansvale. If I have a job at Macarthur Square [in Campbelltown] I have to go to the other shopping centre.”
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