Sydney to Brisbane EV Road Trip: Charging Stops, Costs and Holiday Tips (2026)

A Sydney to Brisbane EV road trip is easy in 2026. The Pacific Highway is now one of the best-served charging corridors in Australia, with several Tesla Supercharger sites of 12 to 16 stalls open to every EV with a CCS2 plug. Most cars need two to four fast-charging stops for the roughly 920 km drive, adding one to two hours to a 10 to 11 hour drive. Public charging for the whole trip costs somewhere around $50 to $95.

The part that needs thought is timing. EV sales have surged in 2026, and holiday weekends now test the network in a way they didn’t a year ago. Charging queues at Easter hit the Hume Highway hard. The Pacific Highway coped better, but this December will be the first Christmas with this many EVs on the road.

This guide lists the major charging stops from south to north, how to plan around busy days, and what the trip costs.

Sydney to Brisbane EV road trip: the basics

The drive is about 920 km via the M1 Pacific Motorway and Pacific Highway, and takes 10 to 11 hours of driving without stops. The NSW Government says the Pacific Highway upgrade cut about 2.5 hours from the trip, and the 14 km Coffs Harbour bypass is due to open in late 2026, which removes up to 12 sets of traffic lights.

Range is the main variable. Highway driving at 110 km/h uses a lot more energy than suburban driving. The Driven’s 2023 testing found steady 110 km/h consumption of about 16 kWh per 100 km for a Tesla Model 3 and 18 to 20 kWh per 100 km for cars like the MG4 and BYD Atto 3. In practice, plan on getting 75 to 85 percent of your car’s WLTP range on this route, less in summer heat or with bikes on the roof.

Car’s WLTP range	Realistic highway range	Likely charging stops
Under 350 km	Under 300 km	4 or more
350 to 450 km	260 to 380 km	3 to 4
450 to 550 km	340 to 470 km	2 to 3
Over 550 km	410 km or more	2

Stop counts assume you leave Sydney or Brisbane fully charged and charge to about 80 percent at each stop, because charging slows sharply above that point on most cars. Use our EV range calculator to get a figure for your own car.

Charging stops on the Pacific Highway, south to north

The corridor has shifted a lot since 2024. Tesla has opened a string of large V4 Supercharger sites, several of them co-funded by the NSW Government and open to all EVs. The main stops for a Sydney to Brisbane EV road trip, running north:

Stop	Region	Network	Stalls	Open to non-Tesla
Heatherbrae	Lower Hunter	Tesla	6	Not confirmed
Raymond Terrace (Terrace Central)	Lower Hunter	Tesla	12 (up to 300 kW)	Yes
Karuah	Lower Hunter	Chargefox	3 units (2 × 350 kW, 1 × 50 kW)	n/a
Taree	Mid North Coast	Tesla	12 (up to 250 kW)	Yes
Taree	Mid North Coast	Evie	150 kW units	n/a
Port Macquarie (Thrumster)	Mid North Coast	Tesla	6	Yes
Kew	Mid North Coast	Tesla	8 (up to 300 kW)	Yes
Macksville	Mid North Coast	Evie	Up to 350 kW	n/a
Coffs Harbour, Big Banana	Coffs Coast	Tesla	16	Yes
Moonee Beach	Coffs Coast	Tesla	15, including drive-through trailer bays	Yes
Grafton	Clarence Valley	NRMA	1 charger (50 kW, CCS2 and CHAdeMO)	n/a
New Italy	Northern Rivers	Tesla	12, including 1 trailer bay	Yes
Ballina	Northern Rivers	Chargefox	3 units (2 × 350 kW, 1 × 50 kW)	n/a
Knockrow	Northern Rivers	Tesla	6	Not confirmed

Sources: The Driven, April 2025, July 2025 and December 2025; Chargefox, 2020; Tesla Australia site listings and NSW Government grant records, 2022 to 2026. Stall counts as of September 2026. Check the live map in each network’s app before you leave.

Three clusters do most of the work. Raymond Terrace and Heatherbrae sit just north of Newcastle, a natural first stop for anything but a long-range car. A second Heatherbrae site is reportedly under construction, which would take the cluster to around 28 stalls. Coffs Harbour is the midpoint anchor: Big Banana’s 16 stalls and Moonee Beach’s 15 give you 31 Superchargers within about 15 minutes of each other. New Italy, between Grafton and Ballina, is the best last stop before the Gold Coast, with a solar canopy and a bay you can use with a trailer attached.

Karuah needs a warning. It’s a convenient spot on paper, but with only three charging units, one car ahead of you can mean a 30-minute wait. People who drive the route regularly suggest targeting the big sites, where a stall frees up every minute or two, instead of small ones where you’re relying on luck.

Tesla’s Supercharger map shows which sites accept non-Tesla cars. Evie, Chargefox and NRMA sites add backup options along the way. Our EV charging networks guide compares them in detail.

How to avoid queues on busy holiday days

Timing matters more than route choice. The busiest days are the ones you’d guess: the Friday before Christmas, Christmas Eve, the first and last weekends of the school holidays, and the day after New Year. People who drove the corridor over the 2025 to 2026 summer mostly report no queues, and at worst taking the last free stall at New Italy while the next car waited.

The Hume Highway shows what can go wrong. At Easter 2026, the ABC reported more than 20 cars queued for 12 stalls at Coolac on Easter Monday, with waits of up to five hours across Good Friday. The Pacific Highway has more large sites spread along its length, so it’s less exposed, but the surge in EV numbers is real:

• The Electric Vehicle Council counted more than 157,000 EVs sold in Australia in 2025, a 38 percent rise, taking the national fleet past 454,000 (EVC, January 2026).
• In August 2026, battery EVs took 24.9 percent of new-car sales and outsold petrol and diesel models for the first time (CarExpert, September 2026).
• The ABC estimated about 25,000 new EV drivers join the road every month in 2026, against more than 1,500 fast-charging sites nationally, up from 55 in 2018 (ABC, June 2026).

A few tactics make a real difference on peak days:

Drive mid-week. Most families head north before Christmas and return after New Year. A Monday or Tuesday trip in mid-December, or a return on 27 December instead of the first weekend in January, avoids the worst of it.

Charge early or late. Queues build from mid-morning to late afternoon. A 6am stop at Raymond Terrace or a 9pm stop at Coffs is usually quiet.

Always arrive with a buffer. Plan to reach each charger with enough battery to get to the next one. If Moonee Beach is full, Big Banana is about 15 minutes south. If Taree is busy, Port Macquarie and Kew are the next Supercharger sites north. Drivers who plan every stop in detail often end up improvising once they’re on the road, and the buffer is what makes that painless.

Charge to 80 percent, not 100. Above 80 percent most cars charge slowly and hold up the stall for everyone behind you. Two short stops beat one long one.

What a Sydney to Brisbane EV trip costs

Public charging for the trip costs roughly $50 to $95 if you leave home with a full battery. At 16 to 20 kWh per 100 km, the 920 km drive uses about 150 to 185 kWh. Starting full covers the first 300 to 450 km, so you buy the rest, typically 90 to 110 kWh, at public rates of 50 to 85 cents per kWh.

Public rates vary by network, site and time of day. As of 2026:

Network	Typical price	Notes
Tesla Supercharger (non-Tesla car)	Varies by site and time; higher than Tesla owners pay	$9.99/month membership cuts the non-member premium
Tesla Supercharger (Tesla owner)	About 33c to 58c/kWh at Big Banana, by time of day	Time-of-use pricing at many sites
NRMA	Set per site, commonly around 75c/kWh	NRMA members get 5c/kWh off in the My NRMA app
Evie	58c to 73c/kWh depending on charger speed	Last published schedule, January 2024
BP Pulse	About 50c to 60c/kWh	Some sites cheaper at night and on weekends

Sources: The Driven, December 2025 and April 2026; NRMA, July 2025; techAU and CarExpert, January 2024; WhichCar. Prices as of September 2026 where available. Check each network’s app for the live rate before you plug in.

If you drive a non-Tesla and plan several Supercharger stops, the $9.99 monthly membership often pays for itself in a single trip and you can cancel afterwards. A comparable petrol SUV using 8 to 9 litres per 100 km would burn about 75 to 80 litres over 920 km, or $150 to $160 at $2 a litre. For more on how the numbers compare, see our DC fast charging guide.

What to sort out before you leave

Most first-timers’ problems are about apps and payment, not range. Set these up at home, not in a car park at Taree.

Install the apps and test them. You’ll want Tesla (for Superchargers), Evie, Chargefox, NRMA and PlugShare. PlugShare’s recent check-ins tell you if a charger is broken. A Better Route Planner (ABRP) is the most popular route planner and adjusts for your car, speed and weather. Our EV charging apps guide covers what each one does.

Add a card and expect holds. Some networks now place a pre-authorisation hold on your card before a session starts. The final charge reflects only the energy you used, but the hold can sit on your account briefly. Chargefox added a hold notice to its app in September 2026.

Check your plug. Nearly every fast charger on this route uses CCS2. If you drive an older Nissan Leaf or another CHAdeMO car, options are thin. Grafton’s NRMA charger is a single 50 kW unit, and the NRMA announced in May 2026 that it is phasing out CHAdeMO at selected high-demand sites. CHAdeMO drivers should confirm every stop before they leave and allow extra time.

Know your car’s charging curve. Some cars peak at 150 kW or more but drop to half that by 50 percent. Others hold a steady rate. If your car charges fastest between 10 and 50 percent, two or three short stops beat one long one.

Towing, heat and overnight stops

Towing a caravan or trailer cuts highway range by 40 to 60 percent. It also makes charging stops harder, because most stalls need you to unhitch. Moonee Beach and New Italy both have drive-through bays designed for cars with trailers attached. Plan your trip around them. Our EV towing guide explains what to expect from different cars.

Summer heat adds another 5 to 10 percent to consumption once temperatures pass 40°C, mostly from air conditioning and battery cooling. North coast humidity in December doesn’t help. Leave a bigger buffer on hot days.

Splitting the trip overnight takes most of the pressure off. Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour are the usual halfway points, and a growing number of hotels in both towns offer AC charging. Plug in overnight and you leave with a full battery, which can cut a whole fast-charging stop from day two. The NSW Government’s EV fast-charging grants program aims for fast chargers no more than 100 km apart on major roads, and the ABC reported in April 2026 that the M1 is one of the state’s named priority corridors.

If this is your first long trip, start with something shorter. Our Sydney to Mudgee EV road trip is a single-charge weekend, and our Australian EV road trip planning guide covers the other major interstate routes. For more on the cars themselves, head to our electric vehicles hub.