Tesla Owners Club Western Australia

PRESS RELEASE
By Horizon Power on 16 March 2018

Electric vehicles can now travel across WA’s Kimberley region, thanks to three new charging stations servicing the 900km stretch of Northern Highway between Kununurra and Derby.

The stations have been installed by Horizon Power in the remote Kimberley communities of Warmun, Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing, completing the ‘missing link’ for electric vehicle charging availability around Australia’s perimeter.

Due to their limited travelling range, electric vehicles were previously only able to reach Kununurra in the East Kimberley, or Derby in the West Kimberley.

Tara Stigwood, Horizon Power Retail and Community Manager East Kimberley said the charging stations were part of the electricity utility’s commitment to a sustainable energy future for regional Western Australia.

“Knowing they can now complete their journey through the Kimberley will encourage more electric vehicle users to travel through this magnificent part of Australia,” Ms Stigwood said.

“That’s great for local businesses and the people in our remote communities.”

“We have a range of exciting projects across the state focusing on providing innovative energy choices for customers,” Ms Stigwood said.

“Making electricity available to power vehicles is just one of the ways we’re working toward our vision for the future of energy.”

Chris Jones, National Secretary of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association said using electric vehicles has a number of benefits.

“In addition to saving on fuel, electric cars are quieter than those with internal combustion engines, and have no exhaust emissions which improves public health and reduces ecological impacts,” Mr Jones said.

The new vehicle charging stations are located at the Warmun Roadhouse, Halls Creek Service Station and Fitzroy Crossing Roadhouse.

To view the network of 450 electric vehicle charging stations across Australia visit https://www.plugshare.com/

For media queries, please contact the media line on 1800 799 745.

Hi All Teslans,

Welcome to our first newsletter for 2018, and a special welcome to our new members, we hope you had a wonderful summer season and we look forward to a great year ahead.

Here is an update of our recent news:

Affiliation

Tesla Owners Club Western Australia (TOCWA) is now official, Tesla motors USA accepted our application and Australia now holds the distinction of being the only country outside of the USA to have an official regional based club. Although TOCWA are completely independent of Tesla owners club Australia (TOCA) both clubs are keen to work together when required, a big thank you to Annie Atkins for putting in the hard work and communicating with Tesla and presenting our case.

Membership

TOCWA now has over 40 members and is keen to recruit more; membership is $50 per year and brings a host of benefits including access to charging cables, member’s discounts on Tesla official merchandise and discounts on TOCWA sponsors products.

Charging facilities

Basic AC charging options are popping up everywhere across both the metro area and regional areas, there are now over 44 locations with Tesla destination chargers and many more locations with 3 phase outlets dedicated to EV charging, AC charging is not the perfect long term solution but it’s low cost to install and gets the discussion started on future possibilities, as time goes on and the EV population increases faster DC charging will become the norm. Don’t forget to make full use of plugshare before and during charging.

Becoming an Outback EV warrior

Once you’ve become accustomed to the driving and charging an EV around the metro area you may like to try something more adventurous, the prerequisites are planning, patience and a spare tyre (you can borrow a spare wheel/tyre combo from McCarthy’s prestige in Claremont), start with the relative safety of the South west where there are a plentiful supply of charging options, a trip to Albany via Bridgetown is a good starter, after gaining experience with energy use on country roads, charging speeds and other factors you can then try trips to Esperance, Kalgoorlie or Geraldton. The 3 most important tips I could give you when country driving is study plugshare religiously, always have a charging plan B and drive at a speed that gives full respect to the unpredictable wildlife.

Upcoming events

TOCWA have a few events in the planning including a drive day to York on the 8th of April. Please mark this date in your calendar.

There are also a number of AEVA organised car events that are a great opportunity to pick up some tips and tricks from long term EV fanatics.

Useful resources

TOCWA has a twitter account @tesla_wa, a website-https://www.tocwa.org.au/ and a facebook group- Tesla Owners Club WA, if you are keen to keep up with the ever changing world of electric vehicles, battery storage, renewable energy and sustainability I recommend an Australian site http://reneweconomy.com.au/ and a California based site https://electrek.co/

Happy motoring

Rob Dean

TOCWA Chair.

Inaugural TOCWA Newsletter Feb 2018

TOCWA, along with AEVA, wanted to see if a Tesla Model S would be more efficient in its use of energy than an efficient diesel vehicle.  So a test was run with a Volvo V40 T5 2L diesel against the same amount of power from a diesel generator.

Which do you think used less fuel for the same 100km run?

Watch Here

It’s also covered in this article at RenewEconomy

and this one at Elektrek

Tesla Owners Club of Western Australia has completed its affiliation with Tesla.

We’re now officially part of the Tesla family through Tesla’s club programme.

As such, we now have a direct line for members interests into Tesla, and a role in coordinating events here in WA.

If you have a recent 75D model S or X that was built before July 2017, you can get it “uncorked” to the same performance as the post July 2017 ones now – it depends on components and age, but well worth checking.

For the model S 75D the 0-100 time is 4.4 seconds down from 5.5 seconds, and for the model X 75D, 5.2 seconds down from 6.5 seconds.

One owner had theirs done today, and has noticed a significant improvement in performance.

This is one of the really unique things about Tesla – how many other cars have you owned where months after the original purchase, you get a free power upgrade?

 

TOCWA’s loan cable stock is now available for members to borrow.

We have:

3-phase tails for use with your Tesla-supplied mobile charger,

ChaDeMo adapter for use at the UWA fast charger and the RAC Electric Highway chargers,

Type1 adapter for use at chargers such as at the convention centre, Leederville and Garden City,

Type2-Type2 cable for use at chargers such as Home Base Subiaco.

We will also soon have available to members, discounted cables for purchase.  If you are interested, or would like to borrow a cable, please get in touch.