NSW says it will roll out another 1,000 public EV chargers over the next two years, help businesses switch to electric trucks, and train 2,000 regional mechanics so country drivers can get their cars serviced without a three-day expedition and a packed lunch. Good. Sensible. Necessary.
But none of that means nearly enough if apartment dwellers are still trapped in the strata equivalent of a Dickensian workhouse every time they ask for a powerpoint in the garage.
Chris Minns says the revamped $100m EV strategy will help motorists save money while making Australia more resilient to oil shocks and the sort of Middle East conflict that sends petrol prices into orbit. He is right about that. If imported fuel gets kicked in the teeth every few years, and it does, then electrification is not merely climate policy. It is economic self-defence.
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ABOVE: Existing EV charging images from the GCB library, showing public chargers and an EV plugged in and getting on with the job.
The real fight is in the basement
The charging target itself is ambitious enough. NSW says new public chargers will go into suburbs and regions that currently have none, with coverage at least every 100km on major highways. Fleet incentives will expand to medium trucks. Councils may be overruled if they drag the chain. Energy minister Penny Sharpe says the goal is chargers everywhere so people can simply plug and play. Marvellous. That is what normal countries should aim for.
The problem is that public charging, however welcome, is only half the story.
Apartment blocks are the bottleneck
The real mess is hiding underneath apartment blocks, in basement car parks, behind strata committees, absent landlords, anaemic electrical capacity, and management structures designed for a world where the biggest common-property crisis was somebody leaving a pot plant in the hallway. If you live in a house with a driveway, you can bang on about overnight charging and cheap solar till the cows come home. If you rent in a 1960s walk-up, you are more likely to be ignored by a property manager for six months while your request for a simple powerpoint dies in committee.
That is the bit governments have been too slow to confront. NSW says it is still working on a right to install EV chargers in strata buildings. Still working on it. There are millions of people in apartments across Australia, and many of them cannot wait for another round of guidance notes and polite consultation while the market shifts around them.
The Guardian piece gets to the ugly heart of it. Some buildings can electrify in stages and make it work. Others are staring down upgrades north of $100,000, or much more, because old wiring and weak building supply turn every charger into a miniature infrastructure war. Investors often do not care. Renters cannot vote. Owners bicker. Committees stall. Everyone agrees sustainability is lovely right up until the quote arrives.
NSW now has to finish the job
That is why Minns is right to talk tough on councils and why the government will need to go further on strata. Guidance helps. Grants help. Lower voting thresholds help. But at some point governments will need to stop treating apartment electrification like a boutique planning issue and start treating it as core urban infrastructure. Because it is.
You can build chargers along highways till they glow in the dark, but if city residents cannot charge where they live, then EV policy remains tilted toward people with detached houses and spare cash. In other words, the exact eastern suburbs snobbery Minns once mocked.
So yes, 1,000 more chargers is good news. Electric truck support is good news. Training regional mechanics is good news. But the real test of whether NSW is serious will be what happens in the basement. That is where the future is being delayed by landlords, wiring, and strata busybodies with clipboards and all the urgency of a sedated sloth.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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