The EV chargers on the Eyre National Highway, across the Nullarbor Plain from Norseman in Western Australia to the South Australian border, have been plagued with reliability and capacity problems from the moment they were installed in 2025.
In retrospect, the decision to run chargers directly from the constrained generator capacity at three remote, off grid roadhouses has not aged well.
Two sites run at maximum of 30 kW (shared if two EVs), and the other at Mundrabilla regularly – and infamously – blacks out the entire roadhouse, resulting in the owner (not unreasonably) limiting charging to 11kW AC only.
It is not a good look for the main National highway between WA and the eastern states. Standard range EVs have been taking up to 14 hours to cover the 650 km stretch, with over half that time taken up by slow charging.
We are fortunate in WA to have Brad Pettitt, an Upper House Greens MP who has repeatedly forwarded concerns from the WA EV community directly to the energy minister. This appears to have had some results.
Horizon Power has contracted for a 50kW Biofil unit running on canola oil which was installed late last month at the rear of the Mundrabilla roadhouse, 77 km from the SA border. The owner and inventor, Jon Edwards, has simplified and refined this unit so that it is easy to use, with clear instructions. There is no charge for use and it is not on the Chargefox network.
It harks back to the halcyon days in 2024 when briefly there were three Biofils on this stretch of highway, making the trip a relative doddle.
Norseman is the gateway to the Eyre Highway, and there is very little other reason to pass through. The EV charger there has had an average of 43 uses per month, despite the fact that its DC charger has been out of order for the past 13 weeks.
If all these EV drivers use the free charger at Mundrabilla, its 1,000 litre canola tank will require refilling every six weeks. It is being used more because the NRMA solar unit at Border village was destroyed by a truck.
Based on Horizon Power’s data, the Eyre Highway is getting roughly double the traffic of the more publicised North West WA highway which takes tourists to Shark Bay and Exmouth. For some reason EV drivers are succumbing to the Nullarbor madness in significant numbers.
That a key charger at Norseman could be out of service for 13 weeks goes to the heart of the problems within Horizon Power around maintenance and accountability. The Eyre highway chargers remain unfit for purpose, based on reliability and slow charging speeds. The biofil unit turns this situation around a little but is a temporary solution.
My suggestion is that the recent decision by Energy Policy WA to award the Queensland charger company eLumina a contract to provide 160kW battery based chargers running off constrained power sources on the Great Northern Highway in WA points to a reliable longer term solution.
These units are ideal for off grid sites with constrained power and a relatively low number of EV charges. They are robust, built to mining sector standards, have proven reliability and cost well under half the original amount allocated to each the four off grid sites on the Eyre Highway.
The entire WA EV community awaits some prudent decisions around this.