Two Blokes Talking Tech
Electric Cars: You just bought an EV? Everything you need to know!
26 Apr 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars with Stephen Fennec and Trevor Long. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Thank you to Uniden, NRMA Insurance. NRMA Insurance helping Australians protect what matters most for 100 years or more. And they're also one of Australia's largest insurers of electric vehicles. And Uniden Smart Dashcams. Get yourself a dashcam. Give yourself peace of mind.
Whatever car you're driving, especially if you've bought a brand new one, Stephen always says get yourself a rear camera.
That's the one with the R model. Yeah. These are award-winning cameras, award-winning dash cams, front and back. You want coverage in all directions.
Great peace of mind. We appreciate their support of Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars for the two and a half years we've been doing this show. And we appreciate everyone, our new listeners too. We appreciate that. And this episode is dedicated to those new owners of electric vehicles. So you've just bought an EV. You've just bought an EV. Congratulations. Well done.
Round of applause for the Two Blokes. Yep. Good decision. If you already own an EV, a lot of what we're talking about today, you'll already know. But you never know. There might be a little refresher in there for you. But we talked about doing these shows. We did one last week about if you're about to buy a car. This is all about you've just bought an EV.
You've just pulled the trigger. Here's what you need to know.
So let's start with that first moment. You've taken the ribbon off the car, the salesman's walking you through it and you've got the keys and you're now on the road. What do you do? I think the first thing to do is get it home and plug it in.
Yeah.
Because that's a mentality thing about just knowing that when it's at home in the driveway, plug it in. Yeah. It's a really simple thing to do because when you plug it in also, a bunch of things happen in the car. The interface, the screens will light up and tell you that it's charging. So you'll learn very quickly where it tells you about the charge limit.
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Chapter 2: What should you do immediately after buying an electric vehicle?
that it's set to the right percentage limit. You don't want to set your car to charge at 100% every single time. It's possible that your dealer says that's not an issue, and a lot of battery technology says it doesn't matter. But it's a good habit to get into because, not because of battery technology, not because of battery health, but because of time.
The 80%, that last 20%, takes a lot longer to do.
I think the other mindset you got into, speaking about percentages, is that... Have what you need. Like if you're going on a long road trip, of course, charge it 100%. If you're just going to be driving around town, then having 80% charge or 70% is fine. Totally fine. That's going to get you around and maybe last you for a couple of days before you even need to consider it.
So I think it doesn't take long to get used to that charging process, used to what you need to drive around.
And we'll talk charging in more detail in a moment. But in this first 24 hours, what that plugging in will do, will teach you all the things you need to know about where the charging port is, how it plugs in, where to keep the charger in the car and all those different things, the basics. Then you want to set your car up so it's able to connect, if possible, if it allows this, to your home Wi-Fi.
When you pull into the driveway, the garage, if it's on your home Wi-Fi, any over-the-air software updates that are available will be available there. Let's do it. If your car doesn't have a SIM card in it, it might also allow you to connect remotely to the car through apps. So that's a really useful thing to do.
The app, that's another thing too. Download the app, set up the app, have an account. Because you can do things like on my Merc, I've left my doors unlocked. I can lock the doors through the app. I can open the doors. I can set the climate.
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Chapter 3: How do you set up charging for your new EV?
It gives me notifications, things that are happening with the car. You may have that too with yours. You might be able to...
maybe it's a hot day you might turn the aircon on before you head out or things like that so the last thing i think is really important in that first day is the range estimate now the thing is don't panic about it okay it will change for years it'll always change if you were to charge your car to 100 every day for example the driving that you do actually determines that range number and every car does it differently
Some cars actually have a toggle I've noticed of a dynamic range versus a fixed range, which is basically a way of saying, do you want me to use my, this is the car speaking, do you want me to use my brain of what I was taught to know about the range of this car? Or do you want me to use what I know about how you've driven it for the last month?
And that's really critical because when you get our Kia EV9, for example, 512 Ks range or something like that. So out of the factory, 100%, there it is, 512 Ks. Yep. But right now, if I charge it 100%, so just before we go on a road trip, it might say $600. It might say $590. It might say less. But it does that based on how we've been driving. So you've been driving around the city a lot.
All we do is drive that car around town. So it's going to go, hey, you're going to make it a long way. Don't panic about the range estimate. But just know it. Know what that is. And that'll help you understand what's coming up for you. And I think that's a really nice thing to know.
You're both getting to know each other still.
Yeah. So you've got your cars in the driveway. You're happy. You're probably going to drive to your friend's place and show them off. That's cool. Yep. The next thing to think about over time is charging. And this is really, really important because I don't think any dealer can truly explain this to anyone at handover. Yeah, because everyone's different.
Everyone's different how they charge, when they charge. There's a lot to learn. Yeah. I don't think one of the things that a lot of our callers on this show have said is I didn't realize that or I didn't know that. Yes, definitely.
I think, well, that's something you should consider, obviously, charging, where you can charge it, when you can charge it. That's probably something you considered before you bought the car. I know a lot of our listeners can charge at home. 95% of drivers charge at home. Yes. All the time. Yes. But there's also other drivers that maybe have the option to charge at work. Yes.
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Chapter 4: What apps are essential for electric vehicle owners?
They're all different. And there's a couple of really important things. Speed is one of them. So a big box, what looks like a fast charger, might only do 50 kilowatt charging, which sounds amazing compared to what you've got at home. But there's others that do 150. And that does make a vast difference in how quickly you get that juice. So you will learn over time which ones are the faster ones.
And you can normally see it within the apps and things. But also be wary of this. And I noticed this with... when I go to the amp pole. At my local amp pole, there's one charger, but there's two plugs. Very cool, right? You think two cars. Excellent. But the number of times I notice someone pull up in a Tesla and try and pull the other plug out, which is a different style of plug.
There are actually two types of plug. There's what we call CCS and CHAdeMO. CHAdeMO. So basically... Every car except a Nissan Leaf, and there might be one other now that still has CHAdeMO, uses the standard same charger. So CHAdeMO is getting very hard to find, and they're not installing new ones.
But you may come across, especially in regional and highway areas, you may come across a single charger with two plugs, and there's someone already plugged in. The other one might not fit your car. Yeah. So be wary of that when you're looking at maps and things. How many Type 2 or CCS chargers are there? Because CHAdeMO will not charge most cars. And are there ā can you buy adapters?
Aren't there adapters you can buy? I wouldn't recommend it even if there are. It sounds dangerous to me. It sounds like the kind of thing that could literally blow up in your face.
Well, the other thing too we should mention in the charging space is that there are some chargers that don't have a cable. Yes. There are some chargers that are just a plug and ā Usually the car comes with not only the granny charger, but also a cable to connect the charger to your car. Yes. So it's got the two-ended cable. So check that the charger that you're going to has a cable built in.
If not, you'll need to BYO cable.
Yeah, if you've got a car that came with a charger, it's probably a granny charger. If you bought a Mercedes, they might give you both. Yeah, you do get both. But most likely, your car only came with one cable. But I've had cars that only have the public charger cable, and they don't have the granny cable. So what I did was, in fact, I think in the Cooper and the Kia, they were the opposite.
But what I did was buy the cable so that in each of my cars, I have two cables. One of them is for public charging. So it's your big electric vehicle charger plug on both ends, CCS. but it's essentially male to male so that the plugs on each end work in the wall. And the other one is for home or normal power points. So it's a normal power plug, granny charger into your car.
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Chapter 5: How does charging at home differ from charging on the road?
That's important too to discuss. That's sort of part of the etiquette of EV charging. So there's EV charging etiquette where if you want to charge to 100% and you don't need it, you're just wasting your time at that point and potentially wasting the time of someone else who's waiting to charge. So I think it's a good idea to take what you need. It's like topping up your fuel.
You're not going to fill her up. You're just going to put $20 in. That's going to get you there.
I've sat at 80% on a road trip on my own and gone, I'm in no rush. I'm going to take it to $90 or I'm going to take it to $95. But if someone pulled up and I was the only charger and I didn't need the extra ā What you do is you go, stop, pull out, and go. It's etiquette.
It genuinely is important to respect other drivers. Part of that is that respect is something you've got to learn as well. But also, too, once you've finished charging, don't sit there. There are some charges that charge you an idle fee. So I think that's to encourage people to get out of there. Once you've finished your charging, clear the space up for someone else.
So the final thing on charging, and this is probably, we could have said this in the first 24-hour thing as well. The first thing you do when you buy an electric car, but you can do this beforehand as well, download the apps. Well, on an iPhone or an Android phone, it doesn't matter. All the apps are available.
Create a folder called Charging, and you download NRMA, ChargeFox, EV, Tesla, and PlugShare. Put them all in there. BP. Those are your core ones. You might hear of others, and there are definitely some smaller ones around, but those ones are going to do your big and charging. And you download them all, but don't just download them. Log into them. Create an account. Yeah.
Put your credit card details in.
Set up a payment card. Yes, very important. And I will say it's a touch on the nerdy side, but it is very, very easy to do. If you know anything about NFC or you join the Australian EV Association, you can order a card, a single ā it looks like a credit card ā a single tap-and-go card, and it has a number on it. And on some of these apps, EV and ChargeFox, you can actually ā
put that number into the app. And so that card, you can just tap on the charger to initiate the charging process. And that's a game changer. So you don't have to use an app or anything like that. I thought I had it with me. Oh, you don't have it? And so it doesn't work on every charger that tap and go, but it could be an easy way to charge at some points.
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