RACV's Electrifying Xmas Present: Kempower Fast Chargers Replace Tritium

If you mention Euroa, Barnawartha North, Airport West, Torquay, Horsham, Moe and Ballarat to an EV driver in Victoria who frequently takes road trips they'll probably know what these locations have in common is unreliable Tritium fast chargers.

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Image by - Neerav Bhatt

Thankfully the owner of these chargers the RACV decided in February 2024 that given increasing utilisation, lack of spare parts and low reliability of their first-generation Tritium ultra-rapid charging stations, they would replace them with a different brand called Kempower.

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Image by - Neerav Bhatt

For EV drivers who aren't familiar with Kempower, it is a Finnish fast charger manufacturer which is well known for being reliable.

EV drivers in South Australia and Western Australia will be familiar with what a Kempower fast charger looks like as they are used by the state WA EV and RAA, state government co-funded statewide charging networks.

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Six months later it is now August 2024 so I asked Liam Brady, RACV Senior Manager Electric Vehicles what progress had been made on this plan to replace all the Tritium fast chargers at the 7 RACV locations?

Liam commented that the RACV recognised the frustration caused to drivers by the stations being offline for prolonged periods.

He said that RACV has committed to a significant upgrade of all its new and existing charging stations.

"We are upgrading these progressively and hope to have them completed by the end of the calendar year".

"We will be installing Kempower hardware as our replacement chargers, which are like-for-like replacements in terms of charging output – that is, a combination of 50kW chargers and 350kWs".

Some stations are out of service due to vandalism. This includes the Ballarat site.

The RACV are upgrading and installing two new Kempower chargers at this site in August 2024 and this will also include CCTV to provide additional security.

At the Torquay site, a car ran into the charger and damaged it. An RACV maintenance contractor will be on site to carry out the repairs by the end of August.

This is all great news as the original plan announced in February was to finish the upgrades by the middle of 2025.

Barring any unforeseen problems the RACV fast chargers at Euroa, Barnawartha North, Airport West, Torquay, Horsham, Moe and Ballarat will all be reliable Kempower units by Christmas 2024.