The Quiet Rise of Kerbside EV Charging Across Australia

EVX adds 120 sites to Chargefox, showing how street charging is scaling for drivers without home access

21 Jan 2026

At first glance the change is modest. About 120 kerbside locations and roughly 240 plugs have been added. Yet the decision to fold EVX’s street chargers into Chargefox, one of Australia’s most used charging apps, marks a shift in how the country’s electric-vehicle market is growing.

For drivers the gain is practical. Fewer apps mean less friction. Chargers that once sat outside the digital map now appear alongside highway fast chargers and shopping-centre bays. For the industry the message is larger. The contest is moving away from raw numbers of hardware towards how well charging fits into daily life.

That matters because more Australians who buy electric cars cannot charge at home. Apartment blocks, rented houses and inner-city terraces rarely offer private garages or power points. Overnight charging, the model on which early adopters relied, is unavailable to many. Kerbside charging fills that gap, letting drivers top up where they already park, near homes, offices or local shops.

Such chargers are not meant to replace fast stations on long trips. They work best when they are dull and dependable. Slow, regular refuelling woven into routine. Integration into a national platform helps. Chargers scattered across separate networks, each with its own sign-up, often sit idle even in busy streets. Visibility and ease now count as much as geography.

There are drawbacks. Street hardware is exposed to vandals, roadworks and weather. When a charger goes down, its failure is public. Appearing on a trusted app raises expectations. Reliability, once a back-office issue, becomes part of the brand.

Policy is nudging the market in the same direction. New South Wales has begun backing kerbside schemes in areas with little off-street parking, an acknowledgement that public charging is not a luxury but a condition for wider adoption.

For operators and investors the lesson is plain. Installing sockets is no longer enough. The next returns will go to those who maintain them well and make them easy to use.

Australia’s charging network is still incomplete. But as kerbside plugs are absorbed into big platforms, the market looks less like a land grab and more like a utility taking shape.