Last month I drove my BYD Atto 3 from Brisbane to Bundaberg for a friend’s wedding. It should have been straightforward — 385km, two charging stops, nice coastal scenery. Instead, it turned into a masterclass in infrastructure anxiety.

The first charger, in Gympie, had one of its two plugs out of order. The remaining plug was occupied, with another EV waiting ahead of me. Wait time: 45 minutes before I even started charging. The second charger, which I’d planned to use in Childers, was offline entirely. I had to limp into Bundaberg on 8% battery, white-knuckling every hill.

This is not acceptable for a technology we’re asking millions of Australians to adopt.

The city-regional divide

If you live in Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, EV charging is reasonably good. There are multiple DC fast chargers within easy reach, reliable Tesla Superchargers (now opening to non-Tesla vehicles), and hundreds of destination chargers at shopping centres and workplaces.

Step outside the capital cities and the picture deteriorates rapidly. Regional towns may have one charger — if it’s working. Spacing between chargers on highways can exceed 200km. And when a charger is broken (which happens frequently), there’s often no backup within range.

This matters because regional Australians drive more than city residents. They’re the ones who need the range and the infrastructure most. And they’re the ones being failed.

The reliability problem

Raw charger numbers aren’t the issue. Australia has been installing public chargers at a reasonable pace. The problem is reliability.

Industry data suggests that public EV chargers in Australia have an average uptime of around 80-85%. That sounds okay until you realise it means one in five times you pull up to a charger, it might not work. For a petrol station, we’d consider anything less than 99% uptime unacceptable. Why are we accepting 80% for EV chargers?

The reasons are multiple: hardware failures, software glitches, network connectivity issues, and — this is the frustrating one — vandalism and cable theft. But the root cause is that many charging networks don’t have adequate maintenance contracts. They install chargers but don’t adequately plan for ongoing servicing.

What needs to happen

Mandatory uptime requirements. If a charging network receives government funding (and most do), there should be binding uptime targets — 95% minimum. Failure to meet targets should result in financial penalties or loss of future funding.

Redundancy at key locations. Every highway charging location should have a minimum of two chargers, ideally from different manufacturers to reduce the risk of simultaneous failure. Single-charger locations are a recipe for stranded drivers.

Real-time status reporting. Charger networks should be required to report real-time status to a central database that feeds into navigation apps. Drivers should know before they arrive whether a charger is working. Some networks already do this (Chargefox is generally good), but it should be mandatory.

Faster maintenance response. When a charger goes offline on a key highway route, it should be fixed within 48 hours, not weeks. Maintenance contracts should specify maximum response times, especially for locations where the next charger is more than 100km away.

Regional funding priority. Government charging infrastructure funding should prioritise regional routes over urban areas. City chargers will be built by the private sector because the economics work. Regional chargers need public support because the lower utilisation rates make private investment less attractive.

The NRMA’s good work

I should acknowledge that the NRMA has been doing more than most to build regional charging infrastructure, particularly in NSW. Their network along major highways is growing and generally reliable. More of this, please.

Chargefox has also been improving, with their ultra-rapid chargers (350kW) along major corridors providing a good experience when they’re working. The Tesla Supercharger network, which is progressively opening to non-Tesla vehicles, is the gold standard for reliability.

My concern

Every time a driver has a bad charging experience — waiting in the rain for a broken charger, anxiously watching their battery percentage drop on a regional highway — it damages the EV brand. That driver tells everyone they know. “I tried electric, it’s not ready.” And another potential EV buyer stays with petrol.

We can’t afford that kind of negative word-of-mouth when we need millions of Australians to switch to EVs over the next decade. The charging infrastructure needs to be as reliable as the vehicles themselves, or the transition will stall.

I’m still bullish on EVs. My Atto 3 is brilliant 95% of the time. But that other 5% — the charger anxiety, the range planning, the broken hardware — is holding back mass adoption. Fix the infrastructure and the cars will sell themselves.