Almost every guide to EV ownership quietly assumes a garage with a power point in it. Plenty of Australians do not have one — apartment dwellers, terrace houses with no off-street parking, share houses, anyone whose car lives on the street. The honest answer is that it changes what you should buy, and in some situations it means an EV is not the right call yet.
Here is how each situation actually plays out.
If you have off-street parking
This is the straightforward case, and it is worth understanding how little you may need to spend.
A standard power point is often enough
Plugging into an ordinary 10-amp household socket adds range slowly — roughly enough for average daily driving overnight, for most people. If you drive a typical suburban distance and the car sits at home for twelve hours a night, you may simply never need anything faster. Use a proper EVSE cable rated for the job and have an electrician check the circuit; do not run it off an extension lead.
When a wallbox is worth it
A dedicated 7 kW AC wallbox refills far faster and, more importantly, lets you schedule charging into a cheap overnight window and finish inside it. If you are on an EV or off-peak tariff, that scheduling ability is usually what pays for the unit, not the speed itself. Installed cost varies with your switchboard, the cable run and whether the site needs upgrading, so get a couple of quotes rather than a headline price.
Our advice: do not buy a wallbox with the car by reflex. Live with a normal socket for a few weeks, see whether it actually constrains you, and install one if it does.
If you park on the street
This is workable for some people and genuinely annoying for others.
- Running a cable across a footpath is not a solution. It is a trip hazard, councils take a dim view of it, and you would be exposed if someone were injured. Discount it.
- Kerbside and pole-mounted charging is expanding in some council areas, but coverage is patchy and highly local. Check what exists within a comfortable walk of your address specifically — not what exists in your city.
- Nearby AC charging you use routinely — at a shopping centre you visit weekly, a gym, a sports club — can cover a low-mileage driver perfectly well.
- DC fast charging as your primary method works logistically but undercuts much of the running-cost advantage and is a chore. If this would be your only option, be honest with yourself about whether you would tolerate it.
Street parking usually points towards a car with a larger battery and faster DC charging, so you charge less often and spend less time doing it — the opposite of the advice we would give someone with a driveway.
If you live in an apartment
This is the hardest case and the one with the most misinformation around it. If you have an allocated space, installing a charger usually requires approval from your owners corporation or body corporate, and possibly an assessment of the building's electrical capacity.
Practical order of attack:
- Find out whether your building already has EV infrastructure or a policy. Many now do, and it is the fastest possible answer.
- Ask what the approval process is. Requirements differ between states and between buildings.
- Ask about load management. A building can often support many more chargers than it first appears if they share capacity intelligently rather than all drawing full power at once.
- Investigate whether a metered outlet at your own space is possible, which is a smaller ask than a full charger installation.
If the building is a dead end for now, treat it the same as street parking: buy for range and fast-charging speed, and lean on public infrastructure — or wait. Both are legitimate answers, and we will tell you which one we think applies to you.
If you can charge at work
Workplace charging is underrated. If your employer offers it, even slow AC charging across a working day covers a large commute comfortably, and it is frequently free or heavily subsidised. For a five-day-a-week commuter it can remove the home-charging question almost entirely.
The caveat is dependence: if you change jobs, your charging strategy changes with it. Worth thinking about before you buy on that basis alone.
Sizing the car to your charging, not the other way around
The mistake we see most often is someone choosing a car first and then trying to make charging work around it. The order should be reversed.
- Reliable home charging? A smaller, cheaper battery is usually plenty, and you will save thousands buying it.
- No home charging? Prioritise battery size and DC charging speed, and accept the higher purchase price as the cost of convenience.
- Frequent long trips? Charging speed matters more than total range — how fast it refills between 10% and 80% is what decides how long you stand around.
Where this leaves you
There is a workable answer for most situations and an honest “not yet” for a few. We would rather tell you the second one than sell you a car you will resent.
The first question in our form is where you would charge, for exactly this reason. Tell us your situation and we will tell you candidly whether an EV suits it — and if it does, which kind.
General information only. Electrical work must be carried out by a licensed electrician. Approval requirements for charger installation in strata and apartment buildings vary by state and by building — confirm your own position before committing to a purchase.