Phil Smith's electric future take his Tesla across Australia

The Cairns man is a proud owner of a Model 3 Longrange Tesla and he is hoping to become only the 14^th person to drive around Australia in an electric vehicle, two weeks into the journey.

"It will take as long as the money lasts or it takes me to do the trip," Phil said.

The money may last a while as "fuel" has cost just $60 so far, in costs to use chargers.

Charging the vehicle can be challenge away from the coast but Phil says it is doable in the Outback.

It depends on how fast he is going (and the Model 3 can go from zero to 100 in four seconds) but Phil says he can safely go around 400km on the one charge.

"I went from Springsure to Barcaldine which is about 380km, doing 110km on the long stretches which uses a bit more battery, and I had 45km of range left," he said.

"When I got to Barcaldine the motel had a charger, so you pay for a room and you plug it straight in.

"On those charges, which they call destination chargers, they run at about 11 kilowatts and that will take about four to five hours whereas in Mount Isa I have it plugged in at a mate's house and it is running at 2KW so it will take me a day to charge."

For places where Phil doesn't have a mate to borrow electricity from he uses an international app called Plug Share.

Plug Share tells him what charging facilities are available in each town and the app lists two in Mount Isa: one at the Leichhardt Accommodation and the other at the Council-owned Buchanan Park.

"People will register their charging facility with Plug Share, and they have 32 amp which means I can charge at seven kilowatts an hour so four or five hours I'm done," he said.

"For places away from the coast which don't have superchargers (which charge at 300km an hour) that's the only way to get around."

Heading to the Territory Phil will use the battery facilities of Camooweal RACQ, the Barkly Homestead and then the Three Ways.

"Part of the fun is planning, a lot are very slow running on caravan park mains," he said.

When asked whether we'd ever get to the situation where charging was just a five minute task similar to filling up now, Phil said it was already like that, "everywhere except western Queensland."

"In Townsville there was a free fast charger on the road," he said.

"So I plugged in, went into the Australian Hotel, had a steak and a beer and by the time I got out I went from 10 to 60pc and set off again."

And for long distance driving the car has another advantage with a mode called "camping mode".

"At night time I can lay down the back seat, stretch out a swag, put it into camp mode with aircon all night and I can sleep in the back," he said.

"When I was at Cloncurry caravan park I paid $30 for the charge in a powered site and the car charged overnight.

"You've got Netflix and Youtube on the car computer and the roof is glass so you can just sit and stare at the stars all night."

The Model 3 Longrange does not come in cheap at $81,000 with standard ones at $65,000 but Phil says there are gamechangers coming into the industry.

"There is a Chinese company called BYD that make lots of electric cars about to start importing into Australia," Phil said.

"These cars have a range of 305km and will sell for $35,000."

And while the price point to buy is comparable to family cars, the real value is in the price point to own, Phil says.

"There's no oil plugs, there's no filters - You don't have any maintenance except changing the tyres. And because it works on one pedal - when you take the foot off the accelerator there is a thing called regen, the motors will slow the car down and put the power back in the battery so you tend not to use their brakes, so you can get 100,000km out of your brakes."

The car has been turning heads on his journey and Phil says he gets three main comments

"How did you get out here, you'll never be able to charge it and what happens if you breakdown," he said.

So what does happen if he broke down?

"I've taken out full RACQ so I've got 150km range of towing," he said.

"But if something did happen you can notify Tesla and they would send out a technician. Apparently they've got guys in old Model S's cruising around the country, carrying a lot of parts."

Follow Phil's journey on Twitter at Phil's Electric Future.

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