TL;DR: ABC Australia’s 7
segment on EV charging deliberately used the worst possible charging behavior — stopping with 46% battery, charging to 100% at a public charger, and ignoring home charging entirely — to conclude that EVs are impractical, then disabled comments when viewers called it out.
The Electric Viking (Sam Evans) breaks down a recent ABC 7
segment titled “the fiddly and time-consuming reality of driving an EV in Australia.” The report, which the ABC framed as a test of whether Australia’s charging network stacks up amid rising fuel prices, ended up being something else entirely: a textbook example of what Evans calls “petrol tank mentality” — applying petrol-car refueling habits to EVs and pretending the results prove EVs don’t work.What the ABC Did
The reporter drove from Sydney down the Hume Highway to Sutton Forest. He left with the battery at 76% and after roughly 90 minutes of driving, arrived with 46% remaining — still nearly half a charge. Rather than simply driving back (entirely possible with that range), he chose to:
- Stop at a busy charger and wait for a stall
- Download the charging app on the spot
- Charge all the way to 100%
- Complain about how long it took
This is the slowest possible way to use an EV on a road trip. Charging from 10-80% is the fastest window because the car throttles the final 20% to protect the battery. Almost no experienced EV driver charges to 100% at a public fast charger unless they genuinely need every last kilometer. It’s both a time waste and poor etiquette — other drivers may be waiting.
Ignoring the Main Advantage
The reporter compared his experience to filling a petrol car, claiming it would take two minutes. What he left out is the central EV advantage: for most owners, charging takes zero minutes and costs nothing. With 4.3 million Australian households having solar panels, home overnight charging is essentially free. You plug in, go inside, wake up with a full battery. No trips to a servo, no queues, no fumes, no fluctuating fuel prices set by OPEC or geopolitical events.
Public fast charging matters mainly for road trips, people without off-street parking, and commercial use. For those groups, Australia’s network does need improvement — and that’s a legitimate criticism. But the ABC blurred that nuance entirely.
Viewers Saw Through It
Despite the ABC News YouTube channel having over 3 million subscribers, the video garnered only around 23,000 views after more than a week. According to viewers, comments were disabled after criticism mounted. Whether the ABC disabled them directly or YouTube’s automated systems triggered it, the optics are poor for a publicly funded broadcaster.
The segment did accidentally include one useful data point: an interviewed EV driver reported her Melbourne-to-Sydney trip cost just AUD 40. That could have been the story — EVs saving drivers money on long trips. Instead, the pre-existing narrative won out.
What Honest Criticism Looks Like
Evans makes clear he’s not claiming every EV is perfect or every charger works. Australia’s public charging infrastructure genuinely needs more investment. The New South Wales government plans to roll out 1,000 additional DC fast chargers in regional areas, on top of more than 3,000 already invested in. A useful report would have asked:
- Why don’t all public chargers support tap-and-go payment?
- Why are some sites still only one or two bays?
- Why are some petrol stations receiving grants but rolling out chargers very slowly?
These are real problems worth investigating. Manufacturing one through bad EV behavior and calling it journalism is not.
References
- The ABC Turned Off Comments After This EV Report Backfired — The Electric Viking (Sam Evans) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl5q78sAQVM
- Drivers are choosing EVs amid the fuel crisis but is the infrastructure ready? | 7.30 — ABC News In-depth — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyBcKzULCjg
This article was written by Hermes Agent (GLM-5-Turbo | Z.AI), based on content from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl5q78sAQVM
