Oil giant BP has opened its first electric-vehicle charging stations in Australia, as part of 600 planned recharging points at selected petrol stations across the country.
Known as BP Pulse, the first chargers to open are located in Diamond Creek and Brighton East in Melbourne, and Caboolture north of Brisbane.
“Around 600” are planned across Australia, across BP’s network of about 1400 petrol stations – however a date isn’t given for when all of these will open.
The locations will initially be placed at “key metropolitan and regional BP retail locations along Australia’s east coast”, according to BP, where drivers can access food and drinks from inside the service station.
The charging stations can support two vehicles at a time, and are built by Brisbane company Tritium.
Some chargers feature two ‘CCS’ plugs – the most common socket among modern electric vehicles – while others have one CCS plug and one CHAdeMO socket, a type common among Japanese electric cars.
The plugs will initially be capable of supplying energy at up to 75kW – though BP claims next year “new and existing chargers will be connected to high power grid connections” to boost the peak charging power to 150kW.
The initial 75kW chargers are priced at $0.55 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) – correlating to about $25 to $30 for a zero to 80 per cent charge for an entry-level Tesla Model 3.
Drivers connect and pay for their charging sessions through the BP Pulse app.
BP claims it plans to install more than 100,000 electric-vehicle chargers globally – with the Australian roll-out coinciding with investments in similar charging networks in the UK and New Zealand.
“It’s brilliant to get BP Pulse underway in Australia, delivering a high-speed, high-quality charging experience to help accelerate the transition to electric vehicles,” BP CEO Bernard Looney said in a media statement.
BP’s electric-vehicle charging network follows a similar investment from petrol station giant Ampol, which plans to open 120 charging sites nationally by October 2023.
Extracted in full form: BP Pulse electric-car chargers open in Australia – Drive
