Perth Voice Interactive

THE rollout of electric vehicles has hit a curious hitch in the inner-city, where a lack of driveways and garages has left many without a means to charge a car at home.

Many of the residential homes across the City of Vincent were built in an era when driveways and garages weren’t common, meaning if they want to charge their electric car they have to roll out a hazardous and highly trippable extension cord across the footpath.

Vincent mayor Alison Xamon has called for coordination across inner-city councils for a plan to solve the problem, and wants the state government to plan and fund electric grid infrastructure to support more EV charge points in the inner city. 

At the November council meeting Ms Xamon said: “I personally believe that in an ideal world we wouldn’t need private vehicles… unfortunately at the moment the design of broader Perth is such that it can be quite difficult to get out into wider Perth if you don’t have a private vehicle.

Private car

“But if you do need a private car, we do want to encourage people to have a greater uptake of e-vehicles, and that is a particular challenge for a number of people who live in Vincent, particularly those properties that don’t have off-road parking.

“So what it means is people will either choose not to buy an e-vehicle, or they’re making do by putting extension cords across their verges and across their pathways. 

“That’s a huge problem. It’s a trip Hazard particularly for people with a disability, but it’s also an

electrical hazard, it’s not something that we want to be encouraging at all.

“Now Vincent has of course been investing in installing fast chargers and that’s at key parking sites, and that’s good and we are going to be continuing to do.

“But I think that it’s an opportunity for us to look at investigating whether there’s an option for individual households at their own expense to install individual chargers on the verges – and there’s some technologies that potentially facilitate that – or whether individual streets can have chargers as public infrastructure with some dedicated parking spots to enable that charging to occur.”

She said with underground power being rolled out, the time is right to bundle in some measures to allow for more charge points. 

Along with beefier infrastructure to feed enough power to the chargers, it might require some state-initiated rule changes. Currently Western Power does not allow EV chargers to be mounted on existing power poles or street lights, unlike some other states. 

Ms Xamon’s motion at November’s meeting to seek out options for more residential charge was unanimously endorsed by councillors, and they’ll also advocate for e-vehicle action from the state government and relevant ministers in the lead-up to the 2025 state election.

by DAVID BELL