WA's RAC electric-highway charging project ends despite rise in EVs
Not that there were many of them.
RAC general manager of external relations Will Golsby said there were about 80 electric cars in the state in 2015, when the highway first opened.
In surveys the RAC conducted 10 years ago, people were interested in EVs, but the number one concern was "range anxiety", the fear that the vehicles would be unusable outside of Perth because there was nowhere to charge them.
"The original intent of the electric highways was really to open Western Australia up and enable people from Perth to travel through the south-west and allow our regional members with electric vehicles to travel to Perth," Mr Golsby told Gary Adshead on ABC Radio Perth.
In 10 years, the number of fully electric vehicles in WA has grown to about 27,000, and there are about 150 charging stations across the state.
The state government has spent more than $43 million on subsidies to help people buy electric vehicles and committed $21 million to extending the charging network.
Mr Golsby said that, having demonstrated that owning an electric vehicle was a viable option in WA, the RAC had decided to move on, withdrawing from its involvement in the electric highway.
"We wanted to open up the state to EVs," he said.
"We believe there's been significant growth. We hope there will be more growth in electric vehicles."
For Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AEVA) president Chris Jones, it is the end of an era in the evolution of electric transport in WA.
It was Dr Jones, along with two others, who first pitched the idea of building the charging network to the RAC 10 years ago.
"It started because I was unemployed and looking for something to do. I wrote a 10-page document on how you would build charging in the south-west," Dr Jones said.
"We found the ideal spots and what the layout would look like, and we pitched it to anyone that would listen."
Many potential funders and government agencies said no, but the RAC took the idea seriously.
"They came back and said: 'You know what, this is absolutely something we should be supporting', and they did," Dr Jones said.
Dr Jones said he was not surprised the highway project had now come to an end.
The RAC purchased and installed electric-highway charging stations, but they were then owned and managed by local governments.
"Councils weren't prepared for what it took to look after this sort of equipment," Dr Jones said.
"You have to learn new skills, get familiar with new technology. You don't make much money from it."
Some of those stations will continue to operate on the Chargefox network, while others will close down.
In the popular south-west holiday spots of Busselton and Dunsborough, the council has decided not to continue running the charging stations.
City of Busselton Mayor Phill Cronin acknowledged the charging station in Dunsborough was popular.
"I don't think there's one time I've walked past and they're not being utilised," Cr Cronin said.
However, he said the council had decided the charging station was not in a great location and the technology was becoming outdated.
"It's just not something we feel that we should be taking on," he said, adding that a local shopping centre in Dunsborough had installed four fast charging stations in its car park, providing drivers with other options.
In the case of the Busselton charging station, the council is inviting expressions of interest from businesses who would like to take over the charger.
While it is the end of an era for electric driving in WA, the RAC said it had achieved what it set out to do.
"It was Australia's first. Other states now claim to have the bigger, larger, longer, wider highways, but certainly this was Australia's first," Mr Golsby said.
For AEVA, it was a major boost to its lobbying efforts in WA.
"Buoyed by [the electric highway], we put the effort into lobbying the WA government into building a decent charging network around the state," Dr Jones said.
"I think the next effort we will need to see in public charging will be workplace charging."
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