NRMA raising the cost of EV charging

People charge at home when they can if they want to keep the cost down, however when travelling far from home the options are public chargers or motel charging, if available, when stopping overnight.

Public chargers are definitely becoming more expensive, but if you want to charge quickly mid-trip without an overnight stopover, you don't want to be waiting around for 5-10 hours at someone's home charger.

That’s a great point! Public fast chargers are essential for mid-trip charging, but they’re often busy and getting more expensive. ChargeNextDoor isn’t designed for long-duration charging but rather for quick top-ups, making EV charging as seamless and ubiquitous as parking.

Many EV owners have home chargers that sit idle most of the time—CND allows them to rent these out, providing more charging options in areas without public infrastructure. As an Australian peer-to-peer platform, we can expand the network faster without waiting for government approvals, helping EV drivers access more convenient charging when they need it.

The goal isn’t to replace public fast chargers but to complement them by offering more flexibility, affordability, and coverage—especially in areas where chargers are scarce.

>...isn’t designed for long-duration charging but rather for quick top-ups...

I suspect it will fail there, you cant do a quick top up with a 2-7kW charger, it is too slow.

>Public fast chargers ... but they’re often busy and getting more expensive.

Actually, more of a concern is whether or not they are working, NRMA has a wide network of chargers, but many of them are unreliable and out of action for lengthy periods of time, I suspect mostly due to them being Tritium chargers.

Take Gunnedah for example, a town where the closest fast charger is 85km away (IF you happen to be heading that way),  the NRMA charger has been broken since last November.

Using a home charger to get to any of the nearest working chargers is going to take quite a few hours.

To avoid hours of waiting around for a slow home charger to deliver enough energy, I suspect many people are willing, if not entirely happy, to pay 40-80c/kWh to continue their journey.

@GordonED7​

By ‘quick top-ups,’ we mean adding a useful amount of charge over a short stop—like while grabbing a meal, running errands, or staying overnight—not 10% in 10 minutes like a DC fast charger.

We should’ve been clearer on that. You make a great point—traditional home chargers (2-7kW) aren’t designed for rapid charging, but ChargeNextDoor isn’t trying to replace fast chargers. Instead, it offers an alternative when public chargers are unavailable, broken, or too expensive.

Situations like Gunnedah highlight why a peer-to-peer network can help. If an NRMA fast charger is down for months, having access to a Level 2 home charger could be a lifesaver for EV drivers stopping for a meal or an overnight stay. Some hosts even have higher-powered chargers (11kW+), significantly cutting charging times.

We recently had a host in Sydney rent out their charger, and many EV drivers—especially Tesla and BYD owners—found it really useful. One driver charged from 70% to 76% in about 20-30 minutes. Over a month, the host had ~20 charging sessions and earned $200.

Apartment dwellers also face major charging challenges, where 70% of people in cities don’t have home chargers. Instead of driving long distances only to find public chargers out of service due to card reader issues, broken stations, or charger hogs, they could simply charge at a neighbor’s place through CND.

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