Best 100kW+ Electric Car fast chargers for peak Christmas, Easter, school holiday trips between Sydney, Canberra, Albury, Melbourne

There are many fast chargers allowing open access to all brands or electric cars between Sydney, Canberra, Albury and Melbourne on the inland route.

I’ve used many of them and these are my thoughts about which fast charger locations I recommend for use during road trips with modern electric cars that have decent peak charging rates of at least 100kW.

There are also quite a few 50kW electric car chargers along the way but I don’t recommend these unless you are not in a rush as they will literally take an hour to add 50kWh to your battery, plus any time waiting for someone else to finish and leave.

Similarly 75kW locations are only recommended if you’re the only one using them. If 2 cars are plugged into the one 75kW charger you’ll both get only half the charge rate which is quite slow. Hopefully BP Pulse upgrades their 75kW locations to 150kW ones ASAP.

Note: if your electric car is only capable of peak DC fast charging charging speed of much less than 100kW eg: MG ZS EV, BYD Dolphin, Hyundai Kona 2021, Kia Niro EV 2022, BYD ATTO 3 … then you’ll get similar DC charging speed regardless of whether the charger you’re using is 50/75/150/350kW.

Tesla Campbelltown Catholic Club

This location has 12 x 250Kw CCS 2 charging bays so there’s lots of capacity and plenty of speed but that’s balanced by a high price of 0.85c/kW. Tesla lowers the price if you have a charging subscription with them.

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

Photos below are courtesy of Evan who has previously written an owners review of his Volvo XC40 Recharge 2022 on Electrifying Everything.

Ampol Pheasants Nest North and South

These twin sites on either side of the Hume highway each have Italian made Alpitronics HyperChargers with 6 EV charging bays (6 CCS 2 cables + 3 CHAdeMO cables).

This means 6 modern EV’s using CCS 2 ports can charge fast at the same time if no Nissan Leafs are using the CHAdeMO cables.

Chargers are under artistic partial shade structures which you can hide under if it’s raining, covered with solar panels that provide some of the necessary power for the site.

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

There is a big risk of ICEing at this location as Ampol has placed the charging site right in front of the Foodary entrance. When I visited with a Kia Niro EV I was testing, two out of six charging bays had petrol cars parked there for quite some time.

There were no signs in the EV charging bays I could see with parking rules. Each charging bay surface says “AMPOL AMPCHARGE” . There’s no clear sign saying “Only for Electric Vehicle charging”.

NRMA Chargefox Goulburn and Evie Sutton Forest

Until recently these were the most popular stops before Sydney going North as well as South of Sydney for those going on long drives, as both had 4 chargers as well as fast food restaurants and decent toilet facilities.

Of the two Evie Sutton Forest is the nicer location with newer 4x 350kW dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo chargers, plus fast food and toilet facilities within metres.

In comparison Chargefox Goulburn is in an ugly back corner behind a service station next to a return and earn bottles and cans recycling area. It’s mixture of dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo 350kW and 50kW chargers are getting old and so are broken down more often.

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

ENGIE Chargefox Royal Australian Mint and Tesla South Point Tuggeranong

These 2 charger locations are relevant if your trip begins, ends or passes through the ACT / Canberra.

ACT residents and tourists driving non Tesla electric cars didn’t 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 up their South Point Tuggeranong location for non Tesla’s.

Five of the Royal Australian Mint chargers are CCS 2 usable by the vast majority of Australian EV’s and One is CHAdeMo which will probably be only used by Nissan Leafs and EV’s imported from Japan.

Thanks to BMW iX1 2023 owner Brent and his doggo 🙂 for sending me great photos of the Royal Australian Mint chargers and pointing out a clever observation:

“The chargers look like they are dynamic depending on the available capacity – when I arrived they said 75kW, and at the end they said 150k”.

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

Together across Chargefox and Tesla charging networks the new availability of these 11 CCS 2 ultra fast chargers will make public rapid charging much easier for residents of Canberra who own a non Tesla electric car and also tourists visiting the nation’s capital in a non Tesla EV.

NRMA Chargefox Gundagai

All three chargers at Chargefox Gundagai were broken down last time I drove past so I haven’t used this location. At time of writing only the 50kW charger was working and the 350kW was broken.

I would avoid this charging location if possible. Like NRMA Chargefox Goulburn the chargers are getting old and they are often slow or broken.

Evie Ampol Tarcutta

This is a much nicer location than Chargefox Gundagai with two 350kW dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo chargers.

The service station has decent toilets and snacks for sale etc. I enjoyed standing under the shade at the servo with some ice cream while topping up my car.

RACV Chargefox Barnawartha North

This four charger location is a great spot to top up 22km before arriving at Albury heading North / after you leave Albury heading South.

It is a very rare example of an Australian electric car highway fast charging station that has shelter nearby as well as a picnic table. Shade and a place to sit underneath should be made mandatory as part of government funding grants.

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

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

RACV Chargefox Euroa

This four charger location is very popular because there are several cafes and fast food eateries here as well as a service station and good toilet facilities. There are two ultrafast 350kW dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo and two 50kW dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo.

Unfortunately like NRMA Chargefox Gundagai and NRMA Chargefox Goulburn these chargers are old and have issues. At time of writing the two 50kW were out of order and the two ultrafast 350kW were restricted to 100kW each.

The chargers are poorly located at the busy entrance to the car park so it can be hard to safely enter and exit. Surely further down the carpark in a quiet corner would’ve been more sensible?

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

Even if it was working despite the great food and toilet facilities I would skip this location during peak road trip times of year because of the high chance of a queue and people charging slowly to 100% while eating. My family is self catering from our esky so we don’t need to buy food.

Evie Ampol Avenel

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

This two ultra fast 350kW dual CCS 2/CHAdeMo charger site has one front on and one side on which means it will be awkward for some drivers to charge depending on where your charge port is located (left/right/front). With an MG ZS EV front charge port it was really easy.

The service station has good toilets and there’s a small table partly shaded by a gumtree where I had my own BYO lunch while watching the car charge.

Evie BP Epping

Depending on whether you’re headed North or South this is the first/last ultra fast charger location on the Northern edge of Melbourne.

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

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