Although it’s in the middle of nowhere, Spud's Roadhouse is a great place to stop on the…

…way to Uluru. For one, it has a few EV charging options.

Now, charging should be simple, like it was for the two EVs that were here when I arrived. They each plugged into one of the two DC charging cables, walked over to get some food at the roadhouse while their cars charged. Then off they went – one towards Adelaide and the other to Roxbury.

But life isn’t always so simple.

I plugged into the remaining charger, which is a slower AC station. It’s only 7kW, compared to the faster DC adjacent chargers at 80-150kW. But, that’s fine – I’m staying here overnight, so I have the time, or I could have just used a fast charger when one of the other drivers disconnected.

This AC charger requires your own “Type 2” (technically “Mennekes”) cable, which we have, so I plugged it into the car and EV charger. To my surprise, it immediately started charging, without using an app or tap card. I left it connected and it was at 93% after we finished dinner. I went to unplug it, which should be easy, right? No. When I opened the Chargefox app to stop charging, this station (number 7171) wasn’t listed in the app. So, there was no `Disconnect` button. Very strange. We’ve never had this before. The other station, 7126, was listed for this location.

I called RAA/ChargeFox support, and then ChargeFox support. They both said 7171 wasn’t listed in their system either, so there was nothing they could do. I explained that I could disconnect the cable from my car and drive off, but that my cable would still be stuck in their charger. They suggested I ask the staff at the roadhouse for help. I asked, but Brad told me that they don’t have the keys anymore, and that the nearest ones are probably at Woomera.

I used the Tesla screen, the Tesla app, and even the new feature of holding the rear passenger door handle for three seconds, all to disconnect the cable. In all cases, that just unlocked the car end of the cable, but the other end in the charger was still locked in, with the display showing as `Paused`. I eventually discovered that after I physically disconnected the cable from the car (by unlocking it and then also manually pulling it out) that the charging station also unlocked its end of the cable. Lesson learned.

According to ChargeFox, this charger is not in their system. The good news is that means it’s free to use. The bad news is that if anything goes wrong, you’re on your own.

I unplugged, and we settled into our motel room for the night. It was getting cold and we couldn’t get the air conditioner to power up. I had heard earlier talk of a blackout in the past few days and wondered if some trip switch needed to be reset. Back to find Brad, master of all.

Earlier, I noticed an BYD Atto 3 behind the fence. I asked Brad about it. He told me that the owner had come through a couple of days ago to charge, but the roadhouse was in the middle of a three day blackout. With no fast charging option available, he opted to leave his car there, and ride with friends the rest of the way, through Coober Pedy, and pick up the car on his return trip.

Brad confirmed my suspicion that the blackout had tripped the air con, and kindly located and reset the trip switch. Heating – yay! Not for long.

Another blackout took out the air con and the town (Well, the roadhouse is the town). The EV chargers were now out of action. The petrol and diesel pumps (which are electric) were out of action. A few minutes later, their backup generator kicked in, restoring lights, but not air con, EV chargers or, I expect, other high power devices.

Sometime later that night, the grid power must have been restored, because the EV chargers were back up and running. We plugged into the fast DC charger to top up a few percent as a buffer to get to our next stop. Charging is quite slow after 95%, so we just left it there and drove off towards Glendambo Roadhouse, aiming for Coober Pedy by tonight.

Glendambo will be fine, right? 😬