- AC stations
- 374
- DC fast
- 268
- 150 kW+
- 163
- AC median
- A$0.45
The difference is dwell time, not the plug
AC charging and DC fast charging are not two grades of the same thing. They are two different jobs. AC sends alternating current to the car, and the car’s own charger converts it — which is why an 11 kW post can still only deliver 7 kW to a car built for that. DC fast charging bypasses that converter and feeds the battery directly, so the site and the battery, not the car’s charger, set the pace.
The practical rule is the one the two bands are named for. A car parked for hours — at home, at work, at a motel — is an AC job, and the equipment is cheap enough to be everywhere. A car stopped for twenty minutes on a highway is a DC job, and the equipment is expensive enough that it only exists where traffic justifies it.
| Connection | Power | Range an hour | A 300 km top-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Household socket | 2.4 kW | 14 km | 20 h 50 min |
| Wallbox | 7 kW | 42 km | 7 h 9 min |
| Three-phase public post | 11 kW | 66 km | 4 h 33 min |
At 6 km per kWh — the middle of the models in this directory's catalogue, so about 175 Wh/km. A more efficient car does better; a larger one worse.
What a DC stop actually delivers
A DC site’s nameplate is a ceiling, not an average. A 350 kW post spends most of a stop well below that: the car tapers as the battery fills, and two cars sharing one cabinet split the power between them. The figures below are what a mid-size car pulls across a stop, which is the number worth planning with.
| Site | What it delivers | Range in 20 min | 300 km takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 kW site | about 45 kW | 90 km | 1 h 7 min |
| 150 kW site | about 105 kW | 210 km | 29 min |
| 350 kW site | about 150 kW | 300 km | 20 min |
After taper and power sharing, at the same efficiency as the table above. A car with a smaller pack or a colder battery will see less.
There are 268 DC fast stations in the directory and 105 of them sit in the 50–149 kW band — the 50 kW sites that were the first generation of Australian fast charging. They are still worth knowing: on a route with nothing faster, a 50 kW site adds about 90 km in the same twenty minutes.
The car is the other half
The plugs you meet at each one
In Australia the AC plug is Type 2 and the DC plugs are CCS2 and CHAdeMO. That is the whole set at a public site, and it is a different set from the American one: there is no J1772 post and no NACS cable here.
| Plug | Band | Stations | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type 2 | AC | 838 | The AC plug on almost every electric car sold here, and the one the directory counts in its AC band. |
| CCS2 | DC fast | 377 | Type 2 with two DC pins added. It is the plug at most new fast sites, including the Tesla ones open to other cars. |
| CHAdeMO | DC fast | 149 | An older DC standard, still on the road with first-generation Japanese EVs and on a shrinking number of sites. |
Station counts from this directory. A station can list more than one plug, so the columns do not add up to the site count.
What each one costs
The directory’s tariffs make the gap plain: A$0.45 per kWh at a Type 2 post against A$0.70 at a CCS2 one. A fast site pays for a large grid connection, a demand charge for its peak draw, and equipment that sits idle most of the day. At 6 km per kWh that is A$7.50 per 100 km on AC and A$11.67 on DC.
| Band | Median tariff | Per 100 km |
|---|---|---|
| Type 2 (AC) | A$0.45 | A$7.50 |
| CCS2 (DC fast) | A$0.70 | A$11.67 |
At 6 km per kWh, before session fees, idle fees and parking. Home charging is cheaper again; see the cost-per-kilometre guide for the tariff spread.
Try it on a stop you know
Six Australian situations, one question each: is this an AC stop or a DC one? The answer is always decided by how long the car sits.
Situation 1 of 6
0 right so farMotel, eight hours
A charger in the car park and 200 km to add before the morning.
Where the numbers come from
Station and connector counts are this directory’s own record. Tariffs are the medians of the prices the sites publish. The AC ratings are the country profile’s — a 2.4 kW household socket, a 7 kW wallbox and an 11 kW three-phase post — and the efficiency is the middle of the catalogue’s models. The DC effective figures are typical rather than measured: they describe a mid-size car across a stop, not any particular one.