Tesla Motors announces Australian charging stations by 2016

First published on PCMag.com – January  13th, 2015

 

T

his week Elon Musk had some news for Australians from his Tesla Motors company on the heels of its Model S release last year.

It has been a big month for Elon Musk in the news and we are only into the second week of January. After appearing on a Reddit AMA (and revealing he loves to play Kerbal Space Program) his space exploration company SpaceX launched its fifth Falcon-Dragon supply mission to the International Space Station and attempted yet another goal – reusable first stage rockets. Unfortunately the test resulted in SpaceX learning a few ways not to proceed.

This week Musk had some news for Australians from his Tesla Motors company on the heels of its Model S release last year. The company has released its plan for 16 supercharger stations between Brisbane and Melbourne by 2016.

Other electric cars currently on the road in Australia are the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan LEAF, and the stations also provide facilities for hybrid vehicles. The Tesla Model S has the longest range of the electric cars Down Under at around 400km on a full charge compared to 150km for an i-MiEV.

So it looks like the Tesla might be the right electric car for Australia. It does however cost more than twice as much as its rivals.

At the moment electric car owners can pay to charge their cars at public charging stations through suppliers such as Origin Energy and at various businesses, universities and anyone willing to shell out for a unit that puts out more than your standard household outlet of 15 amps.

A ‘fast’ or supercharger can provide a half-charge for an electric vehicle’s battery in 20 minutes or a full charge will take an hour, compared to 12 hours worth of charging at home…

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE