Brisbane to Sydney for $50.66, broken down stop by stop

Three charging stops on three different networks, plus the charge already in the battery, add up to $50.66 for Brisbane to Sydney.

That number sits on a phone screen in a short video I made. It opens on a servo price board ticking upward, with my voiceover: "Driving past the servo like, oh, Diesel's 290 a litre? Cute."

Bit smug, I know. That's half the point. The other half is the receipt that comes next, and that's what this article is about.

What the video shows

Under the heading "What this trip costs", the breakdown runs like a docket:

• Starting charge: $14.21
• Stop 1: $18.47
• Stop 2: $13.13
• Stop 3: $4.85
• Total: $50.66

Under the total, highlighted, it says "You save $101.84". That's against the same drive in petrol. Side cards repeat it: $50.66 for Brisbane to Sydney, $101.84 saved vs petrol. That's where my line comes from: "Brisbane to Sydney for 50 bucks. And I saved a hundred."

Why a stop-by-stop total beats a single number

The number shows its working. That's what I like about that screen.

Add the lines up and you get $50.66 to the cent. You can check every step of that yourself, and that's what makes it useful.

It also shows you where the money goes. Stop 1 costs nearly four times what Stop 3 does. With one total and no breakdown, you wouldn't see that. With a line per stop, you can ask why before you leave, not after you've paid.

Tariffs change, so there's an "Edit prices" button right under the total.

A single figure with no breakdown is a guess. A figure with a line per stop is a plan.

Doing the sums by hand

You can work all of this out yourself before a long drive. Here's what you need:

• Your starting charge, and what you paid for it, whether that's a home off-peak rate or a public charger
• Where you'll stop, and how much you'll add at each one
• What each network charges per kWh
• Your car's real consumption at highway speed, not the brochure figure
• What the same drive costs in fuel, at whatever the board says that week

That's five numbers before you've even picked a backup charger for each stop. Three networks means three tariffs to look up. Then you redo it when a price changes, or when you decide to leave with a fuller battery. In New Zealand there's one more line to add, because road user charges change the EV-versus-petrol comparison.

It's doable. It's also a lot of browser tabs at 9 pm the night before you leave.

What the app does with the same trip

Charge Nomad does those sums for you. The Route Planner takes your start, your destination, your car and your battery percentage, then works out where to stop, how long to charge and how much battery you'll have when you arrive, and every stop comes with a backup charger nearby. Each item on the list above has a matching setting. You can add stops along the way, set the charge you want to arrive with, and put in your own consumption figure instead of the WLTP number from the catalogue. If a leg runs through country where the charging infrastructure isn't there yet, the planner flags it before you commit to the route. Plans are saved to your trip history, so you can come back to the same drive later. On iPhone it shows what the trip costs stop by stop next to the same drive in petrol, which is the screen in the video, and it can pick stops by Reliable, Cheapest or Fastest and plan the return trip. Network Prices, also on iPhone for now, lists what each charging network charges per kWh, cheapest first, which is the third item on the hand list done for you. In New Zealand the petrol comparison includes road user charges as their own line.

Here's what's free and what's paid. The Route Planner is part of Charge Nomad+. On iPhone that's $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year in Australia, with a 7 day free trial on the monthly plan. On Android there's a 7 day free trial on the monthly plan too, and the price is shown in Google Play. Prices vary by country. The charger map, Stranded mode, Trip Cost and the other tools are free, and there are no ads anywhere in the app. The calculators run on the phone, so a cost or charging time figure still works with no signal. The map and the Route Planner need data.

One limit, said plainly. The app doesn't tell you whether a charger is working or taken when you pull in, and no app should promise that here. The listings come from Open Charge Map, Australian state government open data, EVRoam in New Zealand and stations other drivers have submitted, checked before they appear, and any station can carry star ratings and short notes from other drivers. That's why every planned stop has a backup, and why the notes are worth a read before you lock a stop in.

Charge Nomad is free on the App Store and Google Play, no ads, iOS 17 and up or Android 8 and up: evbygenz.com/app

Which stop on your last long drive cost the most, and did you know that before you paid?