Public EV charging price index, Australia (Q4 2026)

The index is a price level with a fixed base, the way a consumer price index is. The base is Q4 2026, when the middle tariff in the directory was A$0.50 per kWh, and that edition reads 100 by definition. Every later figure is its own median divided by that one: South Australia at A$0.69 reads 138, and the directory as a whole reads 100.

The base never moves. An index that re-based itself every quarter would report 100 forever and measure nothing, so later editions compare against Q4 2026 and the changelog records the drift. The median itself moves for ordinary reasons — a network adding sites, a state filling in its fast-charging gaps, a tariff change at one large operator — and the point of the index is to say by how much without re-arguing the cents.

Between the 25th and 75th percentile the tariff moves by 31¢: a quarter of priced stations charge A$0.38 or less and a quarter charge A$0.69 or more. Across states and territories the gap between the cheapest and dearest median is 24¢.

A median is one number out of 828. The chart is all of them: each bar is a ten-cent band, and the slider answers the question the median cannot — what share of the directory charges less than the tariff you were quoted.

Only states and territories with at least ten priced stations are ranked. A small sample produces a median that moves on one site's decision, so the rest are listed on the map and in the table without a rank.

Each figure links to the state's own cost page, which is built from the same records as this one. The full cost table lists every state or territory and every network.

The single median is a blend of two markets. An AC post — the ordinary public charger a car sits at for an hour or more — costs A$0.45 a kilowatt-hour at the middle of 575 priced sites. A DC fast site costs A$0.72 at the middle of 253 sites, because it pays for a grid connection sized for a few hundred kilowatts and equipment that is idle most of the day.

The practical version: a 60 kWh car charged 10–80% costs A$18.90 on AC and A$30.24 on DC. If the trip does not need the twenty minutes, the AC post is the cheaper kilowatt-hour.

Networks price per site, so a national median by operator is a summary rather than a tariff. The table lists every network with enough priced stations to compare, cheapest median first.

Every figure on this page comes from the same build-time copy of the directory that the station pages, the map and the cost pages read. A tariff enters the index only if it is a per-kWh price above zero and at most A$2.00; a site that bills per minute, per session or per hour is left out rather than converted at an assumed rate, and a free site is not a zero that drags the median down.

Medians are the lower of the two middle values, which is the rule the cost pages use, so a number here and the same number on a state's page are one computation rather than two roundings. The mean is quoted only to show how far the tail sits above the middle. More on the collection and the corrections process is on methodology.

Listed tariff

The per-kWh price a network publishes for a station. It is not a reading at the charger: it is what the operator says the electricity costs, and it can change without the directory changing.

Priced station

A station whose record carries a plausible per-kWh tariff — above zero and at most A$2.00. Stations that bill per minute, per session or per hour are not priced stations, even when they are not free.

Index value

A median divided by the base quarter's national median, times 100. It makes a A$0.45 tariff and a A$0.69 tariff comparable without arguing about the cents.

10–80% stop

The charge a driver actually makes on a road trip: 70% of the pack, which is where a DC charger is fastest and a full pack is not worth waiting for.

Fill

On this page, 70% of a 60 kWh pack — 42 kWh — priced at the state's median tariff. A unit for the map's second view, not a claim about any particular car.

One row per edition: the national median, its index value, the priced sample behind it and the cheapest state or territory that quarter. Each edition is published once and dated once — a redeploy is not a new edition.