Sales of electric vehicles doubled in Australia last year and the take up is expected to accelerate further in 2024. One Perth couple are preparing to become one of the first families to use an EV to tow a large caravan around the country putting the technology to the test.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 [Music plays]
00:10 The team that prepared this impressive rig are hoping to circumnavigate the Australian continent
00:15 as not so much grey but green nomads.
00:18 But they aren't a group of postgraduate technology students
00:21 or a crack team of EV pioneers sponsored by a green start-up.
00:26 They're the McClellans from Bassendean in Perth.
00:30 Essentially we wanted to get the family to experience the classic lap of Australia
00:35 but we thought we've electrified everything at home,
00:38 can we do it as an electrified trip around Australia as well?
00:41 We wanted to prove that it is possible and start the ball rolling.
00:45 The couple and their children plan to exchange the eco-friendly house they built themselves
00:51 for an equally green mobile home.
00:55 All appliances have been converted to run on solar power
00:58 and once they source a tow ball the caravan will be pulled by one of the largest EVs available in Australia.
01:04 Aerodynamics is one of the biggest killers for EV range
01:07 so we've done some aerodynamic mods to the van
01:10 which has had the extra bonus of adding more solar panels to the roof.
01:16 How many litres of fossil fuel do you expect to burn during this trip?
01:20 Zero.
01:22 The plan is to set off in March, a few months before the scheduled completion of Synergy and Horizon Power's EV highway
01:29 which will provide charging stations from Kununurra in WA's far north to air on the South Australian border.
01:36 Our electric vehicle charging stations are just the start.
01:39 They're intended to incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles
01:42 and show other manufacturers and providers of electric vehicle charging networks
01:47 that it's okay to be able to do this and it's possible.
01:51 The Australian EV Association says the charges themselves are user friendly
01:56 and don't require a special mobile phone app.
01:59 Having charges every 200 kilometres or thereabouts
02:02 means every single EV available on the market today can do that trip
02:08 and any EV that can tow is capable of doing that trip as well.
02:13 Synergy is hoping that means more Australians will become confident about switching to EVs for big road trips.
02:19 I think we've turned the corner of EV uptake in this country.
02:23 The uptake now is incredibly quick.
02:26 It was only less than a year ago that we only had about 10,000 electric vehicles in the state
02:31 and that's nearly double that already and it's only a year later.
02:35 For the McClellans, part of the excitement is pioneering the fossil fuel free Round Australia trip.
02:41 This is not a matter of racing around Australia.
02:44 We want it to be the same as we do six months ago.
02:48 But ideally, if we haven't used any fossil fuels, that's success to me.
02:55 But it's also about guilt free, long distance touring and time together as a family.
03:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]