While electric cars (EVs) have been billed as the way of the future, experts believe Australia needs to massively ramp up its number of charging stations to reduce "anxiety" in wannabe owners. While some EV owners can charge their cars at home, many don't have that luxury due to a lack of garage or because they're in an apartment.

That means these Aussies have to rely on public charging locations lightly dotted around the country and that's enough to prevent others from jumping on the bandwagon. Trevor Long, the host of the Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars podcast and EV owner, highlighted a big problem with this reliance to Yahoo Finance after taking a road trip around New South Wales to test the country’s charging network.

Long discovered charging stations were not just few and far between, but some of them didn't work. This is especially a concern in rural Australia, where Aussies usually have to travel long distances.

RELATED

• Electric car owner exposes wild $4000 price difference

• Electric car 'fire sale' a major warning to Aussies: 'Volatile'

• Thinking of buying an EV? Here's what you need to know

Dominique van den Berg, Energy Networks Australia chief executive, told the Australian Financial Review that EV sales won't boom here like in other regions of the world until there are more places to charge.

“A third of Australians won’t get an EV because they’re worried about range anxiety, and they’re worried about the lack of public charging,” she said. “And so Australia is pretty far behind on EVs and is even further behind on public charging infrastructure.”

Even though EVs have only been around for a few years, there's still a long way to go until they get close to the infrastructure supporting petrol cars.

Do you have a story? Email stew.perrie@yahooinc.com

Across Australia, there are roughly 2,500 charging stations. For comparison, there are approximately 6,500 petrol stations, which have several bays to let motorists fill up. For an even bigger comparison, EV drivers in Canada can choose from 7,000 charging locations.

Van den Berg said there is one charging station for every 10 electric cars overseas. However, in Australia, there is one station for 35 cars.

There has been a huge increase in electric vehicle sales in Australia, with approximately 198,000 driving on our roads — two-thirds of which have been purchased since 2022.

The federal government is trying to ease the anxiety of drivers doing lengthy trips. It has committed to building fast chargers every 150 kilometres on national highways.