With Australians buying electric cars in record numbers, better standards for EV chargers are needed to ensure reliability and privacy, says the EV brand.
Electric Cars
Privacy and reliability issues with public electric vehicle chargers need to be addressed as more people turn to EVs, says the boss of Polestar Australia.
The Australian Managing Director of all-electric car brand Polestar, Scott Maynard, said he is pleased with how charging infrastructure has grown in Australia, but believes more regulation is still needed.
“As the growth rate [of electric vehicle ownership] is accelerating, we also need the introduction of standards, like up time, to ensure that those that are offering that service are held to account on the reliability of their service.
“And also, things like [having] pay to use, rather than a requirement that people that want to charge have to subscribe to an app and hand over their private details.”
“Those things, I think, are important, and we'd love to see a continued government focus on that. Good work done so far, but it needs to continue.”
Current guidance for minimum standards for government-supported public EV charging includes that each charging port has at least 98 per cent annual uptime.
The standards also detail that charging sites should provide an option for payment that supports credit and debit card transactions, does not require registration or app download prior to arriving at the charging station, and does not require a payee’s mobile or internet signal.
However, there are no requirements for privately funded public EV charging infrastructure to meet any of these standards.
Public EV charging stations across the country are operated by a variety of private companies, and often require handing over personal details and data to an app in order to use. Many social media users have expressed frustration at the need to use multiple apps for different charging stations.
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Max is the News Publishing Coordinator for Drive. He enjoys creating engaging digital content, including videos, podcasts, interactive maps, and graphs. Prior to Drive, he studied at Monash University and gained experience working for various publications. He grew up playing Burnout 3: Takedown on the PS2 and was disappointed when real life car races didn’t have the same physics.
