‘The infrastructure isn’t there yet’ is possibly one of the most common reasons people cite for not having bought an EV yet.
There are more than 4000 public EV charging points at almost 1300 locations across Australia now, according to the Electric Vehicle Council. In comparison, the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association says there are around 8000 fuel stations nationwide.
But public chargers are, Melbourne’s Everything Electric show heard last weekend, just one single solution to the charging problem.
Showcased at the event, which welcomed almost 20,000 visitors over the three days, were a range of charging technologies, including home units and batteries, solar car ports, and on-street chargers.
Here’s a rundown of ways you can run an EV without having to go anywhere near a public charger.
Right now, Vehicle Charging Solutions Australia is trialling a boom-mounted charger for EVs in the Merri-bek City Council area, which includes inner-city suburbs such as Brunswick.
The trial involves installing 20 2.5-metre-high vertical poles in the front gardens of the selected residents’ homes, along with a retractable horizontal boom that swings out over the footpath to run the cable to the car parked on the street.
Running the cable up and over the path keeps it accessible and free from trip hazards. The cable features a standard three-pin plug; however, the technology is capable of supporting up to 25kW.
Installation has recently begun, with the full rollout of the chargers expected by the end of summer.
“The counterbalancing concept is a really old one. Machines like this have been used to load boats. The machine is not a new idea. The application of it to this problem is a new idea,” Director Ross De Rango told Drive.
“Some people have looked at EVs and said, ‘No, I can't charge at home. It's not for me.’ They have looked at a solution like this and said, ‘Actually, yeah, now we can.’
“In Australia, there's no one who's done a boom over the footpath for charging. And so local government wants to learn how these things work when a business interacts with a community to do it.”
According to De Rango, there have been around 70 expressions of interest in the technology, which costs around $2000 to $3000. But those missing out on one of the 20 spots should be able to have a charger installed next year if it is deemed a success.
“The role of the local council is to provide permission, but each is funded by the vehicle owner. Assuming the trial is determined to be successful, fantastic, they keep it, but if the trial is determined not to be successful, then we refund their money and take the equipment away,” he said.
“This is good for the consumer, as it saves them money. It's more convenient. It's good for the grid, too, because it enables people who would like to charge from their own solar panels in their own homes to do that.
“Woollies, Bunnings, these people are eventually going to install fast chargers. There are a variety of solutions.
“Three-quarters of the Australian population have a driveway or a garage. Infrastructure is perceived as a problem more than it actually is. Which is not to say we don't need to build stuff, we're gonna need to build lots of public chargers.
“There are about a million people who will be looking for an answer of this nature.”
Australia has one of the highest rates of rooftop solar systems in the world.
According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, there were four million installations across the country in late 2024, or roughly one in three Aussie homes.
Again, though, not everyone has a garage at their home, or sometimes the rooftop real estate to add lots of panels.
This is where solar carports come in. More roof space means you can add more panels, and chargers can also be fitted undercover to top up an electric car or even a caravan.
Mike De Rangi, State Dealer Manager for NSW for Aspect Solar, who was at the show promoting the company’s new solar car port, says dealers Australia-wide are adopting the technology, which offers 5.2kW.
Aspect Solar’s carport costs around $20,000 to $25,000, which, according to De Rangi, sounds like a big spend on the face of it, but installing a regular carport, solar panels, and an electric charger separately would quickly push the costs beyond that.
This particular product has been on the market for around 18 months.
“We’ve had a lot of interest on the commercial side as well, councils, prisons, big car parks, etc,” De Rangi told Drive.
“We’ve talked to a lot of the EV sales yards, too, because they can use them to charge their cars and think it’s a great idea.”
Home batteries and bi-directional chargers
Earlier this year, the Federal Government introduced the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which offers a 30 per cent rebate on the cost of a home battery.
And it has gone off gangbusters. In the first four months since the July 1, 2025, kick-off date, more than 100,000 batteries have been installed.
“I think what people are really starting to realise now is, by installing a battery, they're capturing the excess electricity from the daytime to be used at night. Either to power their homes or potentially power an EV as well,” said Roshan Ramnarain, CEO of Energy Matters, which provides a one-stop shop for consumers and specialists looking for greener energy solutions.
“People are also gaining energy independence. I live on the Gold Coast. I lost power for nine days after a cyclone earlier this year, and I installed a battery shortly afterwards. So really it’s a combination of reducing your energy bills, getting energy independence, and by doing those two things you are also reducing your carbon footprint, which is obviously the most important thing.”
Myenergi, a smart solar-compatible EV charger provider, says it has an ecosystem that combines all the parts, such as the battery, any existing solar or grid supply, and makes them work harmoniously together, allowing the user to maximise the benefits and keep tabs on what they use.
“Home batteries and electrification in Australia are accelerating at a rate that we haven't seen anywhere else in the world or in any of our other markets that we currently operate in,” a spokesperson said.
“While the battery rebate poses a huge opportunity for electrification of homes, it doesn't come without its own set of potential problems if it's not done properly.
“Electrification of a home can be complicated, and what we can end up with very quickly, if not done in a considered manner, is lots of competing devices that don't necessarily complement each other and sometimes can find themselves working against each other.”
Revcharge, which is an end-to-end charging service provider, also used the show to launch its new bi-directional charger, the Star Charge Halo, which enables owners to store surplus energy in their EV during the day when power is cheap and then use their car to power their home at night when it’s more expensive.
But seeking to transform our homes entirely is Basis, a firm of innovators and engineers trying to transform our “outdated electrical grid” to something fitting for the modern world.
“Old traditional electrical panels in our house are really dumb. They're not really that safe, and they provide no intelligence. And as we electrify our homes and electrify our world, it's the one piece of the infrastructure in homes that just hasn't had anything done to it,” said Danny Purcell, CEO of Basis.
“It adds huge amounts of complexity and cost to installations due to its poor design. So we have the world's first smart panel. It has taken four years of R&D to get the product to market, and we are here to launch it in Australia.
“We decided to reinvent electrical safety from the ground up to be safe, but also provide all of the intelligence and control for customers.”
The smart panel is a digitally connected device that provides real-time insights and control over energy use in the home, which is also designed to be safer, with instantaneous fault detection and protection to prevent problems and even fires.
Powering Australia’s heavy industry
A major topic of discussion at the show, and also more broadly, as Australia’s passenger fleet electrifies, is how to solve the problem of charging trucks, which have to cover thousands of kilometres across the country every day with little to no places to stop and top up.
EV NRG, an EV charging solutions firm, used the Everything Electric show to launch its new megawatt truck charger in Australia.
The megawatt charger is the most powerful and fastest charger in the country, able to deliver 1.5MW under the new megawatt charging standard or 900kW via a CCS plug, which is the type used by most passenger EVs now.
“We essentially need to start from the beginning. All the public infrastructure that we have today is focused on passenger vehicles, which is great. Um, but there's very limited infrastructure for trucks to actually charge,” a brand spokesperson said.
A born-and-bred newshound, Kathryn has worked her way up through the ranks reporting for, and later editing, two renowned UK regional newspapers and websites, before moving on to join the digital newsdesk of one of the world’s most popular newspapers – The Sun. More recently, she’s done a short stint in PR in the not-for-profit sector, and led the news team at Wheels Media.
