Since July, larger electricity retailers in three Australian regions have had to offer a plan with three free hours of power every day. Rosie Barnes of Engineering with Rosie argues that almost nobody's bill has gone down as a result. On her reading of the Sydney plans, the free hours come bundled with prices pegged close to the regulated maximum the rest of the time, so a household that moves the dishwasher to lunchtime barely breaks even. The one that comes out furthest ahead is a type she says is rare: a home with a large battery and no solar, which fills up for nothing at midday and runs the evening on what it stored. Free electricity mostly rewards whoever has somewhere to put it.
For drivers, that somewhere is often parked outside. In most homes that own one, the electric car is the biggest battery on the property, and the question is whether it is plugged in when power is cheap. Porsche's own film about wireless charging for the Cayenne Electric answers from the hardware side: a floor pad that charges at around 90 percent efficiency whenever the car is parked over it, which Porsche ties directly to dynamic tariffs. Nobody has to remember to plug in. The catch is price, with the pad alone reported at several thousand euros.
Mercedes-AMG's GT SUV sells the opposite answer. Autotrader's walkthrough lists a 128 kWh battery with charging at up to 710 kW, enough, the video says, to go from 10 to 80 percent in 12 minutes. That buys energy at the moment it is needed, at a public charger, which for most drivers is the dearest place to buy it. Out of Spec Testing's overnight range run shows why capacity still sells on the highway, and how a high-voltage pack helps at the plug too: from a roadside charger limited to 200 amps, the 800-volt iX3 drew roughly twice the power the Rivian R2 managed.
The ID.3 Neo is a lesson in what can be fixed later. OnlyElectric's host found Volkswagen had answered many of the complaints about the original cabin, from physical climate switches to a window button for each door. His main reservations come from underneath: a seating position he blames on the ageing platform, and charging he still calls slow. A cabin can be rebuilt once the criticism arrives. The platform under it stays as it is.
What to watch is whether anyone builds the cheap version of Porsche's idea. In Australia, that could mean a retailer pitching a competitive Solar Sharer plan at EV owners, who already keep a large battery in the driveway, or regulators pressing retailers to price the plans so people actually take them. In cars, it means scheduled charging that catches the cheap hours without a pad priced like an option on a performance SUV. The free hours already exist. Catching them is the expensive part.
AMG's GT SUV Pairs 1,169 hp With 710 kW Charging
Autotrader's presenter missed the launch, so this is a tour of the specification sheet rather than a drive. He says AMG's brief was an SUV in shape and a GT in character, though to his eye it still reads as an SUV. By Autotrader's figures, power runs from 544 hp in the GT 53 through 816 hp in the GT 55 to 1,169 hp and 2,000 Nm in the GT 63, which he puts 13 hp ahead of Porsche's electric Cayenne. Depending on version, he says, drive comes from two synchronous motors or three axial flux motors. The video describes an 800-volt battery with directly cooled cylindrical cells, at 106 kWh with up to 600 kW of DC charging or 128 kWh with up to 710 kW; with the larger pack, the video quotes about 450 km of WLTP range in 10 minutes and 10 to 80 percent in 12. According to the video, AMG recorded reference cars, including the GT R, with 16 microphones to build a simulated V8, complete with paddle-shifted fake gears and seat shakers, all of which can be switched off. Electrive reports the GT 53 SUV opened for orders on 20 October from €113,050, with the GT 55 and GT 63 due in spring 2027.
Four SUVs Held 70 mph as Long as They Could. The Most Efficient One Finished Second.
Out of Spec Testing ran four electric SUVs side by side on its usual highway loop at 70 mph, each starting full with a warm battery, through a night mostly in the 50s Fahrenheit. All four rode on larger wheels than their best range specification. On the team's logs, the Tesla Model Y L led on efficiency at roughly 3.5 to 3.6 miles per kWh, and its trip meter showed about 286 miles from 81.1 kWh, a reading the team suspects runs slightly high. BMW's iX3 averaged about 3.0 miles per kWh but went farthest, 339.7 miles before it could no longer hold 70 mph, using 112.7 kWh, a little more than the 112 kWh the team says BMW quotes as usable in the US. On those logged figures, the BMW used about 39 percent more energy than the Tesla to travel roughly a fifth farther. The Rivian R2 Performance, on optional 20-inch all-terrain tires, reached about 212 miles at around 2.46 miles per kWh, and the Lexus RZ 450e in Luxury trim, which the video lists at 257 miles of EPA range, stopped holding speed at 189. During roadside recovery, from a mobile charger limited to 200 amps, the 800-volt iX3 took about 122 kW and the R2 about 63 kW. Tuesday's edition covered Out of Spec's comparison drive, which reported the same iX3 and R2 figures.
The ID.3 Neo Gets Its Buttons Back, but Not a Lower Floor
OnlyElectric's host, who counted himself among the critics of the original ID.3's cabin, spends this walkaround cataloguing what Volkswagen changed. The doors now carry four window switches instead of two plus a rear toggle, finished in a metal-effect coating, and fabric trim appears on the door cards and dashboard. A new steering wheel from the latest ID models brings physical buttons, including for cruise control, ahead of a 10-inch driver display. The 13-inch central screen still handles climate, but the old touch sliders have given way to physical switches, and volume has a metal knob. He also points to a cooled wireless phone pad, two USB-C ports, an optional Harman Kardon system and a retro display mode styled after early Golfs. His reservations are hard plastic in the rear doors, a seating position he blames on the ageing platform, with a floor high enough to raise his knees and cost him thigh support, and charging he describes as slow. He gives the boot as 385 litres. The EV Report lists UK prices from £33,080 and three batteries: 50 kWh charging at up to 100 kW, 58 kWh at 105 kW and 79 kWh at 183 kW, with WLTP ranges of up to 258, 306 and 390 miles.
Australia's Three Free Hours Mostly Pay Off for Homes With Batteries
Since 1 July, PV Tech reports, retailers with more than 1,000 customers in Default Market Offer areas of New South Wales, south east Queensland and South Australia have had to offer a Solar Sharer plan with three free hours a day. Rosie Barnes, an engineer, examines a Sydney version: an A$1.76 daily supply charge, free power from 11 to 2, 64 cents per kWh from 3pm to 9pm and about 28 cents otherwise. She says it tracks the Default Market Offer, a price cap she says fewer than one household in ten pays, and cites a RenewEconomy comparison in which a large Sydney household that changed nothing would pay about A$3,270 a year on Solar Sharer against roughly A$2,800 to A$2,900 on the same retailers' ordinary plans. In her worked examples, a working household using appliance timers ends up near break-even, one that is home by day and charges an EV at lunch gains about A$500 a year, and a home with a big battery and no solar gains more than A$1,000. Solar owners, she notes, give up their feed-in tariff by switching. The federal battery rebate, around 30 percent according to the Clean Energy Regulator, requires the battery to be installed with new or existing solar. Rosie argues retailers priced the plans to discourage uptake; the video includes no response from them.
Porsche's Wireless Pad Took Eight Years, and Rain Was One of the Problems
This is Porsche's own film about wireless charging for the Cayenne Electric, so it is the company's account rather than an independent test. One team member says the system took eight years and about 20 sample stages, and Porsche calls the hardest part fitting everything into one floor unit, including radar sensors, a Wi-Fi link to the car and an LTE or Wi-Fi connection to the backend. The pad checks for metal objects and for living things, and the team says it had to retune the movement detection after heavy rain kept triggering it. Porsche puts efficiency at about 90 percent, against roughly 70 percent for a phone charging pad and 95 to 96 percent for AC home charging, and argues that a car connected every time it parks is well placed for dynamic tariffs. Porsche also says it is the only carmaker currently offering wireless charging. The video gives no power or price. InsideEVs reported last year that Porsche quotes up to 11 kW and that the pad costs about €5,000 in Germany, or just under €7,000 with the car's receiver hardware. CarScoops reported in April a US price of about $6,500 before tax for the pad, plus $1,650 for the car's hardware.
Bottom line: The charging story worth following is not 710 kW. It is the slow, scheduled kind, and right now it belongs to people with money: Porsche owners who can spend several thousand euros on a floor pad, and Australian homes that can afford a large battery without a rebate. The idea underneath both is right, a car or a house that soaks up power when it is cheapest, and it should not take a Cayenne or a big battery bill to use it. Until then, the free hours mostly go to the people who needed them least.
Commentary on third-party videos. Figures and claims are as presented in the sources and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.