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Darwin to Sydney road trip

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I liked the planes parked in the desert…

Also it‘s interesting tracking @gm12 ‘s trip in Plugshare - kinda like spoilers for his next videos 😄.

The check-ins at Marla Traveller’s Rest are “interesting”. One lengthy dummy spit. Seems like a growing number of outback roadhouses are charging $10/hr regardless of power consumption. Ouch. An overnight charge and you’re paying more than the cost of a tank of petrol.
 
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I liked the planes parked in the desert…

Also it‘s interesting tracking @gm12 ‘s trip in Plugshare - kinda like spoilers for his next videos 😄.

The check-ins at Marla Traveller’s Rest are “interesting”. One lengthy dummy spit. Seems like a growing number of outback roadhouses are charging $10/hr regardless of power consumption. Ouch. An overnight charge and you’re paying more than the cost of a tank of petrol.

'Tiff', yes. Check out her plug share review of kings canyon. They wanted $20/hr or $200/charge!

Any grid connected place is paying about 25c/kwh. So at $10/Hr, a model 3 pulls 10kw =. $1/kwh. A 400% markup!
Eventually these places will get proper metered chargers
 
Any grid connected place is paying about 25c/kwh. So at $10/Hr, a model 3 pulls 10kw =. $1/kwh. A 400% markup!
Eventually these places will get proper metered chargers
Neither Marla nor Kings Canyon are on grid power, though. 12kW from a diesel generator running at best efficiency will consume about 3.6L/h so $10/hour doesn't sound unfair to me.
 
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'Tiff', yes. Check out her plug share review of kings canyon. They wanted $20/hr or $200/charge!

Any grid connected place is paying about 25c/kwh. So at $10/Hr, a model 3 pulls 10kw =. $1/kwh. A 400% markup!
Eventually these places will get proper metered chargers
Neither Marla nor Kings Canyon are on grid power, though. 12kW from a diesel generator running at best efficiency will consume about 3.6L/h so $10/hour doesn't sound unfair to me.
Even rural NSW commercial small business rates are pushing 50c/kwh off the grid, not sure where you get the 25c/kwh. With a Model S dual charger $10/hr is about break even. I am not sure I would begrudge a business charging $10/hr where they have no means to measure each cars usage. Especially if they are the only place in 'town'.
 
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Even rural NSW commercial small business rates are pushing 50c/kwh off the grid, not sure where you get the 25c/kwh. With a Model S dual charger $10/hr is about break even. I am not sure I would begrudge a business charging $10/hr where they have no means to measure each cars usage. Especially if they are the only place in 'town'.
25c / kwh is the standard NT flat rate. Not many time of use meters out here.

NT has a very interesting "grid". There is a natural gas pipeline from the fields below Alice springs which runs all the way up to Darwin. Various mini-grids tap off this gas line and run gas generators to produce electricity. And a lot supplemented by solar these days. Alice springs grid does Alice down to Ghan and up to Ti Tree. Tenant Creek Grid does down to Devils Marbles and up to Three ways.... maybe even Elliot, altough Elliot may have its own grid. And then Katherine grid comes as far down as Mataranka, maybe even Daly Waters. Sorry for not having the exact details, but suffice to say, there is more 'grid' in the NT than you expect.
 
Yep, I discovered that on my recent road trip to Gregory & Greaves Corner and Lightning Ridge. Tesla Nav doesn’t know which unsealed roads are closed or damaged, or even which sealed roads are closed or damaged for that matter. And away from the main roads it sometimes gets the directions completely wrong. I had to map my own route separately and then piecemeal it together once in the car.

I briefly wondered whether you had done the Mereenie Loop from Alice to Kings Canyon. Larapinta Dr is now sealed past Hermannsberg to the intersection with Namatjira Dr, but the next 145 km to a point about 14 km west of Kings Canyon Resort is gravel and quite rough in parts by all accounts. People say they have done it in sedans but you need to drive very carefully to not smash your suspension by hitting a big divot at speed or shake your car to bits over the corrugations. I doubt anyone has done this road in an EV but you never know.
I am pretty sure that Mark Tipping did that loop in his Model S P100D on his recent work trip up the east coast, across and then down the middle. He was visiting a lot of remote First Nations communities as well so really got around.

I am really looking forwards to vehicles like the Cybertruck or Rivian making it to Australia. Having something rugged enough to take the odd hit without breaking, and longer range (particularly in the Cybertruck's case) will make this touring much easier. I want to be the first to drive a production EV across the Simpson desert for example.

Regarding unsealed road routing, what I have noticed with Google is that for their own routing, they seem to set a lower top speed of around 30km/h on all unsealed roads which will automatically make those lines on the graph have higher cost when calculating the best route.
 
Neither Marla nor Kings Canyon are on grid power, though. 12kW from a diesel generator running at best efficiency will consume about 3.6L/h so $10/hour doesn't sound unfair to me.
I agree. On diesel, its a good deal. Interesting though, a mega-caravan using a powered site running its air-condition, fridge, big screen plasma, only get charged about $35 for a site. If they drew 15ams for 12 hours. That would 40kw, so a bargain for them.

The issue is that an hourly rate depends on your car. Tesla model S with 22kw of charging = a bargain. Model 3 with 11 kw of charging = fair. Mecedes EQS charging a 100 kwh battery at 7 kw/hr, at $20/hour = tough.
 
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25c / kwh is the standard NT flat rate. Not many time of use meters out here.

NT has a very interesting "grid". There is a natural gas pipeline from the fields below Alice springs which runs all the way up to Darwin. Various mini-grids tap off this gas line and run gas generators to produce electricity. And a lot supplemented by solar these days. Alice springs grid does Alice down to Ghan and up to Ti Tree. Tenant Creek Grid does down to Devils Marbles and up to Three ways.... maybe even Elliot, altough Elliot may have its own grid. And then Katherine grid comes as far down as Mataranka, maybe even Daly Waters. Sorry for not having the exact details, but suffice to say, there is more 'grid' in the NT than you expect.
That is interesting. Actually sounds like there is more "grid" to their grid than northern SA for sure. All their roadhouses, towns and communities seem to have their own generators as soon as you are north of Pimba.