Hyundai electric vehicle drivers will pay less to charge their cars at Ampol stations than other battery-powered motorists after the Korean carmaker and the petroleum group struck a partnership that will also investigate adding refuelling stations for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Ampol chief executive Matthew Halliday said the arrangement would allow Hyundai to provide electric vehicle buyers with attractive “offers” to use the service station group’s AmpCharge network, which is gradually expanding.
Ampol currently has 10 electric vehicle charging stations at five service stations in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia with 150-kilowatt chargers that take about 15 to 20 minutes to recharge a car’s battery from 10 to 80 per cent.
It plans to add 20 to 30 more charging sites by the end of the year, with the aim of having 120 sites across of its 700 company-operated service stations by the end of 2023. It is also considering installing charging stations at shopping centres and other community hubs.
While Ampol’s AmpCharge network can be used by drivers of any electric vehicles (who pay 60¢ per kilowatt-hour), the partnership will allow it to offer bundled products to Hyundai drivers, such as batteries to charge cars at home and eventually home energy plans.
Ampol received approval from the Australian Energy Regulator in June to sell electricity to consumers and is trialling plans with staff in Queensland.
Hyundai’s Australian chief operating officer, John Kett, said the carmaker wants to help develop more hydrogen refuelling stations so that it could bring more hydrogen-powered sports utility vehicles, such as its Nexo model, to Australia.
It will work with Ampol to develop infrastructure that can be part of the East Coast’s proposed renewable hydrogen highway running from Queensland to Victoria, which is expected to be used by long-haul trucks, and investigate opportunities for refuelling stations in inner cities.
Hyundai believes there are markets for both electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles and wants to expand a pilot with the ACT government, which is trialling 20 Nexos.
“What we want to do is bring scale to that because whenever you bring scale to it, and volume, prices come down and costs come down,” Mr Kett said.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles have longer ranges and shorter refuelling times than battery-powered vehicles. “The experience in refuelling is almost identical to a fossil fuel vehicle today,” Mr Kett said.
Hydrogen passenger vehicles are popular in Korea, which has more than any other country on the roads, and Hyundai is trialling hydrogen trucks in several countries including Switzerland, the United States and New Zealand.
About 4 per cent of Hyundai vehicles sold in Australia are now fully electric, compared with around 2.6 per cent of vehicles from all car manufacturers sold nationally.
To avoid long delays in delivery, Hyundai only releases a small number of its electric powered Ioniq 5 SUVs for sale at a time. About 100 to 150 are put up for sale online each month, with customers receiving them from four-to-six weeks from the date of purchase.
“They get sold out in about five minutes,” Mr Kett said. Another electric model, the Kona, is sold through dealerships.
Ampol’s Mr Halliday said that feedback from electric vehicle drivers to date showed that they wanted reliable battery chargers, shelter from the rain and sun while cars are being powered up, and access to toilets, cafes and shops.
Extracted from AFR