Variety’s Big EV Adventure came to close last Friday at Forrest Place, Perth with our two donated Teslas (a Model 3 and a Model Y) making their way to a homecoming event in the city centre.
The whistlestop trip covered over 10,000km in about 13 days; one of the fastest trips undertaken yet by accomplished EV enthusiast and engineer, Harald Murphy. Harald is the Secretary of the Tesla Owner’s Club of Western Australia (TOCWA), and he said the trip was a test of the electric vehicle (EV) charging network in remote areas of Australia:
“This trip we have covered only about two-thirds of Australia through Western Australia, Northern Territory (NT), and into South Australia (SA).
“Some of the challenges other EV drivers need to be aware of is that the planning for this type of extended road trip needs to have some contingencies built into it.
“On this drive Variety Chief Executive Officer, Chris Chatterton and I have discovered some challenges with the ongoing maintenance and repair of the WA EV Network in some of the more out of the way places such as having to divert on one day to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park from Pardoo to find a working charger.
“There has been some good groundwork laid in terms of the charging network infrastructure and we have had excellent support from Horizon, Chargefox and Tesla, but there is definitely some tweaks that would need to be made to make the journey easier for recreational EV trips.”
Some of the key challenges for EV drivers in these more remote areas include broken chargers or very few and far between fast chargers adding a lot of extra time to the journey.
Seeing Australia on this type of tour has been a great blessing and I’m so grateful that we could visit some of the places Variety makes an impact right across Australia.
We have had incredible support from the EV driving community and my sincere hope is that we can build up a fundraising EV tour for enthusiasts in the future.
There were some hiccups along the way on this adventure, which required us to think on our feet.
Having Harald’s considerable experience with EV distance drives and ability to pivot were invaluable to keep us on track.
Wildlife on the road after dark was a very real risk to be avoided, as was driver fatigue, which we managed with plenty of rest stops and communication.
I would like to thank all of our sponsors who really got behind us, as well our Variety neighbours in Northern Territory and South Australia who have just completed their Bash fundraising events for the year.
A big thank you also to Gateway Printing for the fabulous Variety car wraps and obviously TOCWA for all their input and advice as well.
Chris Chatterton is CEO of Variety W.A. See Chris’ daily vlog for all the highlights and challenges of the trip.
Variety’s first Big EV Adventure highlighted the remote and regional communities that receive support every year including schools via the EduKids program, children through the Variety Heart Scholarships grants and individual families which receive kids’ communication devices, mobility equipment and other items to help kids live the best life possible.
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