We left Gayndah at a little after 7am on Saturday morning. The plan was to drive the 100Ks to Goomeri and charge up at the newly installed chargers there and drive on to the BP chargers west of Toowoomba. That all went as planned with the Apple Maps taking us out to Oakey and approaching the BP from the west rather than driving through Toowoomba, which suited us.
We arrived at the BP Pulse chargers to find that three of the six plugs were not working. Fortunately there was no one else there so we were able to start charging at full speed. It was not long before other vehicles arrived and later with a couple more waiting. As more cars are added to the available chargers, the total amount of current available is shared between each vehicle, hence the charging speed for us slowed down, ie it takes longer to charge.
One of the vehicles that came to park beside us was a brand new BYD Sealion 7. The owner had only charged at home and had never used a high speed charger before, so we spent a little time with him as he learned what to do. His wife and two teenage children were away at a cafe some where as he learned how to charge. He was planning to drive with his family to Dubbo by that evening so we shared with him what we knew about the chargers leading to Dubbo.
We drove on to Goondiwindi as planned and when we arrived, there was a car with no number plates charging. The guy had purchased the vehicle at an auction in Canberra and he was driving it home to Brisbane with no plates and all that goes with them.
As we were charging, another Atto 3 pulled in to charge and this one was even more interesting. He was also driving to Dubbo that night but had never charged his car before. He had two teenage children with him and had left Brisbane and run out of charge somewhere north of Goondiwindi. Fortunately he was near a farm and the farmer allowed him to charge from a 240 volt outlet and he sat there for two hours to get 5% of battery to get him into Goondiwindi.
He didn’t have any apps on his phone to charge and didn’t know how to get it working. We ended up using our charge card to get him going. It was over 40C and we didn’t feel like standing around in the heat any longer. It ended up costing us $27 but it was probably worth it to get out of the heat.
We drove on to Moree and stayed at the Gwydir Hot Springs Caravan Park in a cabin. I went back into the charger at Moree to charge up that evening and to my surprise, the Atto 3 from Goondiwindi had just arrived and started charging so I had to wait for him. Strangely enough he didn’t offer to pay for the Goondiwindi charge, instead promising to send me some money to cover it. Haven’t heard from him yet.