Been trying to watch the Hume situation today, look better than any recent holiday travel. Gundagai and Euroa still having queuing issues, but nowhere near the same extent, at most 10 minutes.
I’ve just returned from a Melbourne-Albury-Sydney-Albury-Melbourne trip over the Xmas rush. I tried as many chargers as I could even if I didn’t need a charge because I wanted to learn them and their ins and outs and what was around them etc.
I have the following to report:
TL;DR: Awesome easy drive, heaps of charging, needed to live it to believe it over a holiday weekend.
Superchargers:
Euroa: was an early build, 130kW shared x2, 6 stalls, a couple of blocks walk to regular timed food (not 24/7). Off highway, but not a far off detour. Near full most of the time. Seriously needs an upgrade.
Albury/Wodonga: sorry, not assessed as I had destination charging at Albury overnight.
Holbrook: brand new. Charged there both ways. Almost empty on the way up and half full on the way back on Boxing Day. Some non-Tesla bays. No toilets. No nothing. A couple of blocks walk to the main drag where there may be something open.
Gundagai: same old early 6 stall 130kW shared site; constantly showing as 5min wait on app but had sites available when I arrived. Oliver’s food available. On highway.
Yass: Brand new 16 stall site, never saw it full. Back of a pub, but don’t know about facilities outside pub hours. A long detour off highway, however,
Goulburn: old site, long detour off highway, food a couple of blocks away during normal hours.
Exeter: busy 6 stall site next to Hearthbrae pie shop. Recommend, but it was the only only one showing “busy” on the screen when I rolled in but it turned out there were 2 stalls available and while I ate my pie there continued to be vacancies with Teslas coming and going.
Campbelltown: this one was quiet. If you need a charge close to Sydney, it’s not far off the motorway.
Non-Superchargers;
I wanted to charge at Evie chargers out of principle because my Novated Lease financier gave me $1000 of free Evie charging which I hadn’t used because I usually charge at home.
This proved problematic.
Avenel was ok (2x350kW)
Tarcutta also had 2x350kW, one of which was showing available when I turned off the highway- as soon as I plugged in, a Polestar drove in. As I didn’t need a charge, I ran over to them and told them I would leave because I didn’t need a charge. They were thankful.
Sutton Forest (Exeter) had a 4-stall Evie which I used (although the obligatory 1 Tritium was out of service).
Campbelltown had a 2 stall which was full.
So, taking a non-Tesla on this same trip would have been more stressful. Although some (not all) of the Superchargers now have some non-Tesla bays, but non-Tesla drivers don’t seem to know this yet as they were queueing up at the other chargers.
There were some other non-Tesla chargers that I didn’t check out near Sydney such as Pheasants Nest and Marulan.
