76-year-old retiree Bill Gresham has proved that not just one, but several weekends can be “ruined” by travelling around Australia in a short-range electric car.

The long-time Canberra resident recently completed a trip around Australia in his 2020 model Hyundai Ioniq Electric.

Posting in a Facebook group set up to satirise the previous government’s claims that EVs would “ruin the weekend”, he said: “I have just ruined a few more weekends – five in a row! I drove my 2020 Hyundai Ioniq around Australia. PlugShare said it could be done and they were right. ”

Actually, he’s done better than simply ruining a few weekends. With a relatively small 38kWh battery that offers 311km WLTP range – less than 300km in most real-world driving conditions, the Ioniq Electric has gifted him a very unique claim.

That is, the first “electric big-lapper” to circumnavigate Australia in a short-range electric car, according to this list made by the Tesla Owners Club of Western Australia. Unless you count, of course, the converted VW Golf driven by Dutchman Wiebe Wakker.

And it cost him just $300, he tells The Driven.

At home, owning and running his electric car is a simple affair. Gresham mostly charges at home from a powerpoint in his garage, using the “grannie” charger (the 240-volt mobile cable) that came with the car.

It’s not his first EV, he says: “I had a Mitsubishi iMiEV for six years before this car. “It had a range of just over 100km so it was not suitable for long trips.”

That didn’t worry him as he would just hire a combustion car for longer trips, pooled with friends or caught the train.

But, he says, “I have wanted to drive around Australia for a long time. But, I had to wait until there was an EV with sufficient range that I could afford.”

Before buying his Ioniq Electric – which retails from around $55,000 driveaway – he made sure it would be suitable for the trip he was planning.

“I worked out the route for my trip from a study of PlugShare and the minimum range I would need,” he says.

His 36-day road trip took in the usual suspects on a long-distance trip around Australia. Heading north, he went from Canberra to Bourke, Charleville, Barcaldine, Mt Isa, Three Ways, Katherine, Kununurra, Wyndham, Halls Creek, Derby, and Broome.

Then, he and fellow roadtripper and co-driver John Phillips headed south to Port Hedland, then on to Newman, Meekatharra, Mt Magnet, Leinster, Kalgoorlie, Norseman, Caiguna, Ceduna, Port Augusta, Berri, Mildura, Wagga-Wagga, before finally arriving back home in Canberra.

The trip was not without its challenge, says Gresham.

“Some stages – such as Halls Creek to Fitzroy Crossing were more than the EPA range of 270km (20km more) but the EPA range is an understatement in the tropic,” he says.

“The effect of warm weather on range is reflected in the car’s estimate of the remaining range. You just need to keep an eye on both “Remaining Range” and “Distance to Destination”.

“If you don’t have enough reserve, just reduce speed until the required amount of reserve is restored. To do long trips is useful to gain an understanding of the effect of temperature and speed on range,” he says.

His observations about road-tripping in electric car that he made along the way include the starkly different levels of driving convenience between using DC fast-chargers and only having access to much slower AC charging.

It painted how much easier it will be for the majority drivers to have faith in switching to electric transport once there are enough reliable fast-chargers across the country.

“Without rapid DC chargers, long-distance trips are slower and need more planning,” he says.

“Even then, there remains uncertainty about where the chargers actually are, whether they are working, cost etc. i.e. It is the sort of uncertainty that early adopters may see as a challenge, but most members of the general motoring public would not like.”

He said that using PlugShare was an indispensable help, but it does not completely eliminate the uncertainty.

“The more people use PlugShare and the more they add their comments and tips the more useful it becomes. There are other guiding Apps showing Rapid DC chargers, but only PlugShare lists most of the informal AC charging places that were needed for my trip,” he added.

One of his favourite parts of the trip was using the Biofil charger at Caiguna, which is powered with waste vegetable oit and EV owners can use for a flat fee of $50.

“It was a novelty to use the fish-n-chips powered charger at Caiguna Roadhouse on the Nullarbor. A 50kW DC Tritium charger is bolted to a diesel generator that runs on waste cooking oil from the roadhouse kitchen.”

His words of wisdom to those unsure about going electric?

“If you are a two-car family, change one to an EV now and that will give you the confidence to make the other one an EV later,” he says.

Being a Canberran, he is welcoming of the recent announcement that new combustion car sales will be banned in the ACT from 2030.

“It’s a timely wake up call for those trying to pretend that the transition to EVs is decades away,” he says. “Hopefully it will give the other states/territory the confidence to follow suit.”

Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model 3 and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.

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