Affiliate disclosure

The obvious conflict, stated plainly

Our central message is that most Australians should buy a cheaper charger than they're being sold, and that a three-phase upgrade is usually a waste of several thousand dollars. If we were paid a percentage of what you spend, we would earn more by telling you the opposite.

We'd rather you knew that tension exists than have you discover it. It's the reason the rules below exist.

Our rules

1. The recommendation is decided before the money. What we recommend follows from your car's onboard charger and your supply — physics we publish and you can check. If a product pays us nothing, and it's the right answer, it's still the answer.
2. Disclosure sits next to the link, not in the footer. If a page contains links that earn us money, we say so at the top of that page, before you read the recommendations. Not in fine print you'd never scroll to.
3. No paid placement, ever. Nobody can buy a position in our database, a spot in a recommendation, or a better write-up. If that ever changes it will be labelled as advertising, unmissably.
4. Commission never changes a ranking. Where we compare products, the order is set by merit for the reader's situation. A higher-paying product does not move up.
5. We'll name who pays us. When we do have commercial relationships, this page will list them by name — not a vague "we may earn from some links".
6. Affiliate links cost you nothing extra. Commission is paid by the retailer out of their margin. It never raises your price.
7. The calculator and database stay clean. Our tools tell you what your car can accept. They will not be tuned to steer you toward hardware that pays us.

How we're likely to be funded

Being straight about the plan rather than springing it on you later. We're likely to use some combination of:

• Affiliate commissions on charger hardware, where a program exists. These are usually a small percentage of the sale, paid by the retailer.
• Installer referrals — connecting you with electricians for quotes. This model already operates in Australia for solar and EV chargers, and it typically pays per enquiry rather than per sale.
• Adjacent products like solar, batteries or electricity plans, where the sums are larger than chargers.

If we adopt a referral model, we'll be explicit about it, because it carries its own conflict: we'd be paid for sending an enquiry whether or not you go ahead — which creates pressure to encourage quotes you may not need. Watch us on that one. Our answer will remain that plenty of people don't need to spend anything at all.

What we won't do

• Write a review of a product we haven't properly understood.
• Publish a "best chargers" list ordered by what pays best.
• Let a sponsor see or approve editorial before it's published.
• Manufacture urgency about a purchase you can safely defer.
• Hide a commercial relationship because a page reads better without it.

Your consumer rights are unaffected

Buying through a link on this site doesn't change your rights. Australian Consumer Law guarantees apply to your purchase from the retailer exactly as they would otherwise. We're not a party to your transaction, we don't sell anything, and we can't help with warranty or returns — that's between you and the seller.

We're not electricians

Nothing here is electrical advice. Everything on this site is general information about how EV charging works. An EV charger installation must be carried out by a licensed electrician, who is responsible for compliance with AS/NZS 3000 and your distribution network's requirements — not us. Where we describe network rules or standards, we're summarising public documents and linking them; your electrician's assessment of your specific site is what counts.

Questions

If anything here is unclear, or you think we've broken one of our own rules, tell us. Get in touch — and see how we source and verify for the editorial side of the same commitment.