Australia’s Longest Electric Superhighway

Not to be outshone by Queensland’s Electric Super Highway, the Western Australian Government has announced its own — the longest electric highway in the country, from Kununurra to Esperance. That’s a total of 3205 km. With 45 chargers placed every 200 km, there should be no range anxiety and plenty of time and opportunity to shop in regional towns.

A couple of catches might be that the highway will not be fully operational until 2024 and there are only 1,400 electric vehicles registered in Western Australia (that is one for every 1,850 people). The list of charging sites reads like the words of “I’ve Been Everywhere Man” written by an Australian, Geoff Mack, in 1959. It was a 1962 number one hit for Lucky Starr. Johnny Cash did a cover version with US place names in the ’90s.

The Western Australia government is not planning to follow the example of Victoria and introduce an EV road usage tax. Unfortunately, they are also not planning to follow the examples of other states that have introduced a range of incentives such as subsidies and tax exemptions.

Western Australia State Environment Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson says she would prefer a nationally consistent approach led by the federal government. Probably no chance of that happening, as the federal government is still pushing fossil fuels — recently spending $2.3 billion to prop up Australia’s ailing refineries.