The Australian government has committed to outfitting three of it’s largest cities with hardware to recharge electric cars. They plan on setting up 200,000-250,000 charging stations each in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, with another 150 battery swap stations between the three. The project should cost the Aussies almost $670 million US dollars. And heres the kicker… they want it all up and running by 2012.

Most of the so-called stations will be nothing more than electrical sockets in parking lots or at already existing gas stations. But still, they’re making an effort and sticking their financial neck out for this one, which sort of makes me nervous for electric cars everywhere, since whenever government gets this involved in a project, you know it’s going to fail somehow.

How will people pay for the electricity? The government plans on setting up cell phone-type contracts that drivers can pick how much electricity they think best fits their usage, and pay that bill monthly. Does this mean the Mad Max timeline will never become a reality?

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