We charged up at Miami Aquatic Centre.

The charger is between the parking spots, in a layout I haven’t seen before. I guess it’s more flexible to plug into front or rear car chargers without turning the car around.

The display seemed to indicate 75kW, but I only got 37kW out of it, even though I was the only one connected.

I checked in on PlugShare, so I could be alerted if anyone was waiting, while I charged up to 100%. If anyone else was waiting, I would disconnect after 95%, when the charge rate slows.

However, there was a guy waiting in an MG. He hadn’t checked in using PlugShare and the Chargefox app doesn’t facilitate waiting, so I didn’t know he was waiting. I happened to look sideways at one point to see him parked in the other EV bay, which he’s not supposed to do, since it blocks others who might want to use the Chademo connector. But if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have noticed.

He is an Uber driver and this was his second time charging that day. He said he is waiting on a wall charger or cable for home, since MG is currently out of stock in Australia. He’s annoyed that all of the solar power from his roof can’t currently be used in his car.

I unplugged and moved, so he could connect to CCS2. At the same time, another EV arrived to connect to the Chademo plug. They were debating whether the charging rate would be shared between them, but I didn’t stay long enough to find out . It seems I got there at just the right time.

My conclusion in all of this is that we need a better queuing mechanism.

We spent thirty minutes charging, using the time in the car to catch up on emails, blog etc. But we would have preferred to charge when we were shopping earlier at the nearby Robina Town Centre. We were there to grab a few clothes and a feed in the food court. It would have been perfect to just plug into a destination charger, while there anyway for a couple of hours. I am surprised and disappointed that a shopping centre that big doesn’t include EV chargers. I found web news articles that talked about government initiatives to install some there, back in 2020! What happened Mark Bailey MP and Annastacia Palaszczuk MP?