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Recent developments indicate that a Brisbane company is about to become one of the biggest suppliers of high voltage car chargers in the United States.

This is despite the fact that the electric car market in this country is still in its infant stage.

It is projected that by the end of this year, Tritium will be able to sell 10 to 20 times more chargers in North America than it did in Australia.

This is courtesy of the cooperation with ChargePoint, the world’s biggest electric vehicle charging network. David Finn, Tritium’s managing director, says this could more than double the network’s existing 150-odd DC high voltage chargers.

PlugShare, the crowd-sourced charging point mapper, mentions just nine suppliers of fast car chargers in Australia. Dr. Finn says that if plans push through, there would only be “a handful” left in the country.

PlugShare also mentions that there are around 200 of the much slower AC chargers across the country. Compared to more than 20,000 in the US, the numbers in Australia are really inconsequential.

Dr. Finn said he hoped that by the end of the year, Tritium would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest suppliers of high voltage chargers in the US.

He said the Australian EV market was restricted by price, distance, limited car choices, infrastructure and government incentives. “If you’re looking for a $20,000 car there is no EV offering for you,” he said.

“If you’re after a UTE or a four-wheel-drive, there is no EV offering for you. If you’re after a van, there’s no EV offering for you,” he added.

“So it makes it very difficult to get good penetration when you don’t have a good range of vehicles, whereas when you look to Europe and America that’s really starting to fill out now,” Dr. Finn continued.

EV manufacturers in the United States enjoy large tax credits. Such credits are not extended by the Australian government.

Based on the data supplied by the industry’s official VFACTS, there were only 1135 electric cars sold in Australia in 2014. If this figure is small, just consider the total number of units sold in the previous year – only 292.

However, Dr. Finn said being based in a city where electric cars were still relatively few, hadn’t actually been a real disadvantage.

After spending 10 years producing electric cars Tritium entered the EV charger market in 2011. At that time, a couple of now-failed larger international players were thinking about their options in Brisbane.

“The location affected us to some extent but we’ve been born global in some respects,” Dr. Finn said. “All our products are exported, so we’re used to it,” he continued.

“Our chargers are quite portable and can be freighted on airlines and things like that so we can get things out to people relatively quickly,” Dr. Finn added.

He also mentioned that there were even some advantages to the location. “We’re on the same time zone as China. A lot of our components are coming out of there, so that helps,” he enthused.

Focusing on what the electric car market faces, Dr. Finn said: “Asia’s going to be a massive market in the future.”