Why the best place to own an EV in Australia is not a capital city – and why western Sydney is the worst

Where is the best place to buy, and own, an electric vehicle in Australia? Sure, this sounds like a trick question, to which the answer would be “nowhere, you should move to Europe, preferably Norway”, but the answer is actually that shimmering shitty, sorry, city on the shill, the Gold Coast.

No, we’re not joking. Recently released research combines the number of chargers in a given area with the median price of charging an EV in that district, the value of incentives you’d get from local authorities if you bought there (and how many of your neighbours are buying electric vehicles around you) to come up with a score that ranks the best regions of Australia to own an EV.

According to this mathematical word salad, the Gold Coast – which has more chargers, with 63, than any of the other regions studied – gets an EV Positive score of 84.3, putting it at the very top of the list.

Inner Melbourne, which covers Melbourne City, Port Phillip, Yarra, Moonee Valley, and Bayside and which will take the news that it’s not the best at something, provides fewer incentives than the Gold Coast (just $100 compared to $500, according to the research released by EV car insurance experts ROLLiN’) and has fewer chargers, with just 47, but it manages to scrape into second place with 82.64.

The hugely green and green friendly region known as the Australian Capital Territory might have expected to win this ranking as well, but it manages third places with 53 chargers, $500 worth of incentives and the highest level of EV Share (the percentage of vehicles in total that are EVs) at 0.95 per cent). The ACT’s score was 81.68.

Making up the rest of the top 10 are South Brisbane in Queensland, Sydney City and the Inner South, NSW, Bunbury in WA (notable for having 43 chargers and providing $3500 in incentives, the highest by far), South East Melbourne, the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Adelaide Central and Hills in South Australia and, in 10th, the Latrobe, Gippsland region of Victoria. 

The researchers from ROLLiN’ didn’t miss the chance to name and shame the worst areas in the country, of course. It rated Sydney’s South West, covering Campbelltown, Liverpool, Wollondilly, and Fairfield, as the least EV-friendly region in the country. NSW offers zero incentives for EV buyers and the area has just eight chargers.

That’s still twice as many as Mandurah in WA, which has just four, but does provide that handy WA pay day of $3500 in incentives.

Brendan Griffiths, Executive Manager at ROLLiN’, saw the numbers over all as good news for the Australian EV market.

“It’s awesome to see Aussie cities getting on board with electric vehicles, we’ve now got over 2,000 EV charging stations nationwide, and places like NSW are adding hundreds more soon,” he said.

“But there’s still a lot of work to do in some areas. Our research highlights how tough it can be to own an EV in regional spots, where public charging stations are scarce. That’s why you see such a tiny EV presence in the outback. 

“If you’re considering getting an EV, I’d recommend checking out how well your local area is set up for electric vehicles.”

You can read the full research here.