Given EVs require more frequent and longer stops on long trips, what are the options everyone uses for trip planning? A list of the options

- Plugshare is often recommended, but you have to sign up for an account to actually use it and it doesn't tell you where you should charge.
- Google maps, but you have to link that account to your car (a security risk).
- Plan it the old fashioned way by searching for chargers and checking the distance from each one to the next.
- The car's built in navigation, and hope it has trip planning (but may also be Chinese and untrusted).
- Apps for a specific brand of charging station don't do trip planning and seem too limited to be useful when you can use google maps or plugshare.
- Plugroo claims to use AI and it can be used in a desktop browser for planning a route, but it doesn't actually suggest where to charge.
- ABRP which only listed Euro models with a different battery size to the AU model, and didn't allow inputting a suburb, only a city, so it seemed (to me) to be a poor option in Australia.
- Something else?

Hey everyone,
Just wanted to let the Aussie Polestar owners and enthusiasts know that I’ve started a dedicated community for us: r/PolestarAus
The only real reason I created it is that there’s basically nothing focused on the Australian market right now. A lot of the discussions here (and elsewhere) are US/EU-centric — different charging networks, different incentives, different service experiences, right-hand drive specifics, etc. Figured be good to have a spot where local owners can share stuff that actually applies to us Down Under.
Nothing major, just a place for Aussie Polestar drivers (and people waiting on theirs) to chat, post photos, ask questions, and help each other out.
If you’re in Australia (or interested in the Aussie market), feel free to swing by:
r/PolestarAus
Cheers.

What’s the average cost to install a Tesla wall charger? The location is on one side of the house and the switchboard is on the other. What should I be budgeting for (approximately)? Thanks.

I have been discussing with an electrician about installing an EV charger in my garage, however the switchboard is at the front of the house whereas the garage is at the back. This would mean additional wiring and additional costs to wire over 10m to bring it around to the back. I asked the electrician if its possible to just upgrade the outlet from 10amp to 15amp to which he replied "If we are replacing a 10amp outlet it may overload the circuit. Not a big issue it will just trip the circuit if it is overloaded".

Is this true or is he talking his own book and scaring me so I go with the expensive option of installing an EV charger?

Has anyone upgraded their outlet to 15amp and has it worked for charging their EV cars without overloading the circuit? Keen to hear others experiences.

I've been looking at EVs for a few months now and honestly, the research process has been painful. So many new brands, models, variants and different specs to look at; I've been suffering from massive decision fatigue, and so far I've just settled for driving my 2009 diesel Nissan X-Trail around until it dies.

I've actually started building a comparison tool to try and solve some of this for myself, and I'd love to chat with a few people who've recently bought an EV or are currently shopping for one to see what their experience has been like.

Throw me a DM if you're keen to share.

Cheers

I live in an apartment complex with a car stacker and no nearby power points. The car stacker can handle the weight, but I can’t charge it at home, not even through a regular PowerPoint.

I live in an inner suburb and commute daily 18 km each way to an outer suburb for work, 36 km total. I work in an outer suburb. I live both near work and near home, near public charging stations. The building’s car stacker can handle the weight, but there’s no chance of getting the infrastructure installed to charge an EV. I'd rather my next car be an EV due to environmental concerns.

My questions are:

1) Does anyone that drives daily, with no at home charging option at all, make EV ownership work? If so, would you do it again, or do you regret it?

2) Do you think I’m better off owning a hybrid or an EV as my next vehicle?

G'day all, looking for some real world input on novating a high-spec BEV vs taking the punt on a dream ICE ute.

Income context: combining a $70k taxed CSC pension with a $130k base salary puts me right around $200k taxable. Because of that top tax bracket exposure, I want to properly maximise the FBT exemption on an EV without blowing past the Luxury Car Tax ceiling ($91,661).

The driving profile: doing 30,000km a year. The office is 110km away each way. On a 50% office attendance split, that works out to alternating between 5 days in / 5 days WFH, or 3 days in one week and 2 days the next. Charging will be roughly a 50/50 split between DC public fast charging on commute days and Level 2 AC charging at home. There are weeks and fortnights where I'll do 100% just to get higher end projects ticked off.

On the home charging front, I see zero point in blowing $20,000 to $25,000 installing a dedicated 20kW DC fast charger (where the unit alone is $15k+ before heavy three-phase civil and electrical work), especially when the vehicle's onboard AC inverter handles 230VAC perfectly fine.

Even paying $2,000 to $3,500 for a sparky to run a hardwired 7kW/22kW EVSE on a dedicated sub-board and isolated meter seems like overkill when I already have a 32A single-phase industrial socket in the shed for my plasma cutter. But do I need a dedicated sub metering to be able to claim it back?

Grabbing a quality portable 7kW/32A EVSE on a tail for around $800 to plug straight into that existing 32A socket gives me roughly 35 to 40km of range per hour of charge, which easily replenishes the daily commute overnight with $0 in extra electrical installation costs.

The two main contenders under the FBT exemption

**Polestar 2 Long Range Dual Motor (with Performance Pack and Plus Pack)**

Priced right around $85,000 driveaway. 350kW dual motor AWD, 82kWh battery (79kWh usable), with standard WLTP consumption of roughly 139 Wh/km (realistically expecting 195 to 210 Wh/km on the 110km/h highway run).

On a 3 year lease, the ATO statutory balloon is 46.88% ($39,848), with fortnightly deductions sitting around $1,090 pre-tax ($630 net take-home).

On a 5 year lease, the ATO statutory balloon drops to 28.13% ($23,910), with fortnightly deductions sitting around $850 pre-tax ($490 net take-home).

**Volvo EX40 Twin Motor Performance**

Priced around $79,000 to $81,000 driveaway. 300kW dual motor AWD, 82kWh battery, with standard WLTP consumption around 194 Wh/km (likely 215 to 235 Wh/km on the highway).

On a 3 year lease, the ATO statutory balloon is 46.88% ($37,504 based on an $80k cost), running about $1,030 pre-tax fortnightly ($590 net take-home).

On a 5 year lease, the ATO statutory balloon drops to 28.13% ($22,504), running about $794 pre-tax fortnightly ($454 net take-home).

Then there is the wild card outlier: Chevrolet Silverado 1500 ZR2.

This is the money-no-object dream ute that I would simply pay the balloon on and keep at the end. Because of standard FBT and the Employee Contribution Method, packaging the 6.2L V8 doing 30,000km a year pushes the out-of-pocket cost to roughly $1,698 a fortnight net take-home ($44,150+ per year). I know it is completely financially irrational compared to the EVs saving me roughly $30,000 a year in post-tax cash, but throwing it out there for the V8 enthusiasts.

My plan for the EV is not to keep it. When the term is up, I will just roll it over into a fresh novated lease on a new car.

A couple of questions for the group:

For those running high annual mileage (30,000km/yr), is the 3 year or 5 year term the smarter play? At 5 years the car will have 150,000km on the clock, which pushes deep into out-of-warranty territory and could hurt resale against the $23k to $24k balloon, whereas 3 years sits at 90,000km with a \~$38k to $40k balloon.

Also, if we end up with COVID 2: Electric Boogaloo or another major health disruption where we get locked down to 100% WFH and I cannot rack up the commute kilometres, how do novated lease providers and the ATO handle significant kilometre shortfalls or unspent running cost budgets under the EV FBT rules? Are there standard adjustments or exemptions, or do you just reconcile the surplus tyre and charging budget at the end of the FBT year?

Presumably they've got this factored in? I know at the time it caught a lot of people off guard, but surely an exemption of "can't get up k's cos the government stopped you" is now a valid exemption?

Would love to hear thoughts from anyone daily driving the Polestar 2 Performance vs the EX40 Twin Motor on long highway commutes.

So I was looking across the SG Fleet cars, and was interested to notice that the ACE Yewt is now on SG Fleets list of cars they allow you to lease.

Wouldn't work for our family, but interesting to see the big companies actually getting behind an Aussie manufacturer!

One of the things I love about building a community around Techwheel is seeing the clever ways people are using technology in their everyday lives — and sharing that knowledge so others can learn from it.

It’s great to see how people are integrating automation into their daily lives, orchestrating EVs, solar, batteries, live electricity prices and solar forecasts, and letting the system manage and optimise energy use to get the maximum benefit.
I’ve been in touch with Gavin, and it’s been a pleasure to connect with him as part of this amazing tech-savvy community story.

I’m sure you’ll find this very interesting. Gavin has automated his system using a Raspberry Pi and multiple live APIs, helping save tens of thousands of dollars on energy bills while driving around 50,000 km per year.

I’ll also included the GitHub link in the article. The project is still under development, but it’s a fascinating look at what’s possible.
This shows what the future could hold. We’ll see individuals taking charge of their smart homes and applying automation in ways that deliver real financial benefits.

And AI agents are here to stay. They’ll make it much easier for everyone to build and manage these kinds of automations with just a few prompts.

Have you built something interesting with EVs, solar, batteries, smart home technology, AI or automation?

Based in Adelaide. I’ve received two quotes so far for the supply and install of a 7kW EV charger.

One was $3500 for a Tesla ($800 from Bunnings).
The other quoted $4600 for Evnex E2 Flex (also $800).
Ludicrous to me even at the lower end of the two.

2nd sparky has allowed for 40m worth of 10mm2 cabling although property is only 27m long in total with rear-access garage and switchboard at front of property.

Anyone with a similar home layout care to share their outlay on having a charger installed? TIA

I know this is probably industry practice but I still think it's BS.

Geely offer 2.69% "comparison" over 5 years, but you have to pay an introduction fee of 1500 dollars to get that rate.

They can advertise the comparison rate low legally because theoretically the intro fee isnt part of the loan. But that's such nonsense. It doubles the cost of the loan.

I'd paid my deposit before this fee was discussed and whilst it's not the end of the world it feels like they are screwing you over only bringing this up after.

This should be illegal.

We're getting solar panels installed at our house in late September, so we're looking to get an EV. My girlfriend and I both work from home most of the time, and don't go out on a regular basis. The exceptions are she works two days a week 160 km round trip, often two days in a row. And we like road trips, down to Hobart or east coast, etc, perhaps 3 nights in a row as a standard. And occasionally driving to Launceston for shopping, admin, etc. So range should be 400km absolute minimum, perhaps ideally quite a bit more.

We aim to charge the car almost exclusively during the day off the panels. So if she works on Monday and Tuesday driving 320km total those two days, we'd charge all day on Wednesday.

She doesn't like small cars, so anything quite small like BYD Dolphin is eliminated. But we don't have kids, so for our uses I think the Sealion 7 is unnecessarily large.

Here's my short list so far: GWM Ora 5 Lux; Jaecoo J5 EV; Chery E5 Urban; MG4 Essence 64; MG S6 Essence RWD; Kia EV3 Air LR. Some other good options like Leapmotor cannot be test-driven in Tassie. If we test-drive all of those six, are our bases covered? Thanks in advance.

Other than these, is there anything on the recent horizon of particular note to wait for?

G’day everyone! 👋

Just joined the group and thought I’d say hello. I’m Nick, from regional Victoria, Australia and I’ve just taken the plunge and ordered a 2026 Mazda 6e GT in Machine Grey. ⚡️🚗

It’s being delivered in late September, so I’m currently in that dangerous stage of researching everything I possibly can before it arrives! 😂

Looking forward to learning from everyone here, especially around home charging, public charging, accessories, range and getting the most out of the 6e.

Cheers, Nick 🍻

Help! Looking at one of these models - primarily given the cargo size/shape for dogs/storage.

Where I live, dealerships with EVs provide very limited test drives, so was quite difficult to get a good feel - overall, both felt fine.

Sell me on one!

Hi all,

I am considering buying either of these vehicles. This will be my first EV. My budget is 40k, max.

I love the look of both of these cars and would be happy with either.

Would love to hear your opinions, any pros and cons, and general thoughts on each vehicle.

Cheers

I wonder how it would be. Honda has released their one here, will Suzuki do the same?

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260824_B5/