Final month we reported on the 1,185 km journey from Brisbane to Canberra in a Volvo FH heavy-duty truck – the one certainly one of its sort within the nation, and believed to be the longest journey but in Australia for an electrical truck of any kind.
That journey to Canberra took roughly 19 hours to do, together with charging time, however because the drivers took time to doc on the extra leisurely return journey, truly discovering someplace to cost was not really easy.
As a result of Australia has so few electrical vans – and lots of of these use swappable batteries – there isn’t any appropriate fast-charging charging infrastructure in place. And, as a result of the Volvo FH is a hungry beast, consuming almost 2 kwh per kilometre, the drivers had been obliged to search out many usable charging factors usually reserved for electrical automobiles.
That labored positive normally. At Sutton Forrest for example, the truck was capable of pull up on the opposite aspect of the charging bays and plug in with out impacting any others. At some, it was obliged to decouple the trailer and park throughout two charging bays to fill the battery.
“Australia’s EV quick charging infrastructure isn’t arrange for vans …. however we solely needed to uncouple the trailer twice,” says Matt Wooden, a Volvo Australia spokesman who helped drive the truck to Canberra and again.
“Sutton Forrest was the simplest. At Seven Hills in Sydney we needed to park throughout two charging bays. Lots of people had been charging and for probably the most half individuals had been amazed.
“Seven Hills was the one place the place we had any destructive commentary, one man got here throughout from the bowsers to inform us what a silly deal EVs had been.
“I believe my favorite bit was once we blocked off the diesel bowsers at Goulburn. I needed to almost jack-knife the truck in entrance of the diesels, so we may get entry to the chargers. The roadhouse proprietor got here out and was amazed . He wasn’t upset in any respect, he stated it was improbable to see the electrical truck.”
Which begs a query: When a fossil gas automobile blocks an EV charger it’s known as ICE-ing. So what do you name it when an EV blocks entry to a bowser?
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Pushed, and likewise edits and based the Renew Financial system and One Step Off The Grid websites. He has been a journalist for almost 40 years, is a former enterprise and deputy editor of the Australian Monetary Evaluation, and owns a Tesla Mannequin 3.