Tesla charges ahead in Australia

AUSTRALIA’S three biggest east coast cities have beaten the Big Apple to the punch, getting a network of Tesla-backed downtown public car park electric vehicle charging bays ahead of Manhattan.

While California-based Tesla Motors is planning to spell out its New York parking station charging point roll-out this week, its Australian counterpart has almost completed the commissioning of the special parking bays in Secure Parking car parks in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

In all, 18 parking bays equipped with wall-mounted fast chargers are being opened under Tesla’s Destination Charging program in partnership with Secure Parking in nine inner-city multi-storey car parks.

The specially marked, pink-painted bays allow Tesla owners to not only park in a prime position in the car parks but to also top up their car’s batteries free of charge.

According to Tesla Motors Australia’s website, the Destination Charging public car park changing points have already been established at all planned locations in both Melbourne and Brisbane, but only one of the planned three for Sydney appears to be installed so far.

Melbourne’s Secure Parking points are all in the CBD – in Flinders Lane, Bourke Street and Lonsdale Street – while the Brisbane sites are in Elizabeth St, Adelaide St and Queens St.

Sydney’s first Secure Parking point is at Northpoint, in North Sydney, with others to come to Martin Place and Castlereagh St in the CBD.

The so-called High Power Wall charging systems at Destination Charging points supply up to 40 amps of electricity – similar to home installation units.

Tesla is also rolling higher-power “supercharging” points in strategic locations down Australia’s east coast, allowing Tesla drivers to charge their car’s batteries in minutes instead of hours.

Secure Parking operates more than 1700 car parks worldwide, including more than 450 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Canberra, Newcastle and the Gold Coast.

In New York, Tesla is said to be planning to roll out a similar car park charging point program involving more than 20 locations around Manhattan.

Unlike the Australian points, Tesla owners in New York will be charged for the electricity, with the cost added to their parking fee.