RENEWABLE ENERGY UPDATE: Electric Vehicles Transforming Small Towns and Driving Culture
Fuelling up your car at the service station; it’s something we’ve all done. And we want to do it quickly to get back on the road. But it’s a different story with electric vehicles; EV’s take significantly longer to charge than pumping gas does, sometimes as long as 40 minutes. While this sounds rather inefficient and cumbersome, there is a silver lining to the longer charge times that might be surprising.
Where the highway had formerly taken service station business away from small towns, and the economic impact of tourists, EV stations might just bring that money back. In the NSW town of Goulburn, more EV charging stations are being built to accommodate driver’s and that infrastructure is reviving a driving culture of looking around town while fuelling up your car.
Dr. Matt Wright spoke with 2SER’s Jack Gembitsky about this burgeoning transformation of the service station experience and the economic potential than EV’s can bring to small towns.
To learn more check out Bianca Nogrady’s article in the Guardian that prompted this episode:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/22/electric-vehicles-australia
The Renewable Energy Update is a regular segment on 2SER, where Dr Matt Wright checks in on the developments happening in the space of renewable energy. Listen to past episodes here.
