New Sydney apartment buildings will need to be "electric vehicle-ready" and the local council will develop ways to retrofit older buildings with chargers as part of a sweeping action plan designed to speed up adoption of the next-generation cars.
Sydney City Council also pledged double the number of electric vehicle chargers in its car parks under the strategy, as well as investigating off-street charging and working with taxi and ride-share companies to invest in more electric cars.
Transport experts welcomed the proposals, saying help for apartment dwellers was overdue, but warned action would be needed quickly.
The Sydney council passed the Electrification of Transport in the City plan unanimously late on Monday, in what Lord Mayor Clover Moore said demonstrated a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"If we are to stop dangerous, runaway climate change, we need to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible," she said.
"Lowering transport emissions, which are currently around 20 per cent of all our emissions, will be crucial to this task."
The plan will involve the local council investing in more off-street chargers, such as those installed on poles by Ausgrid, increase the number of electric vehicle charging stations in its car parks and advocate for a "stringent" national fuel efficiency standard.
The council will also introduce planning controls requiring new developments to install electric vehicle charging infrastructure, fund feasibility assessments to retrofit older apartment blocks with chargers and conduct a study into the best ways to upgrade many older building types.
Ms Moore said developing ways to charge electric vehicles in apartment blocks was critical to the future of the technology as more than 75 per cent of Sydney residents lived in multi-unit dwellings.
"Many of these apartments have off-street parking spaces and we know that most of them will look to charge their electric vehicles in those spaces," she said.
"But owners corporations need to juggle complex metering, demand management and efficiency, safety standards and insurance and, of course, questions over who pays and how."
New apartment buildings throughout Australia will need to be electric vehicle-ready from May, as changes to the National Construction Code take effect.
Swinburne University future urban mobility professor Hussein Dia welcomed the Sydney council's proposals and said more local councils should make changes to support Australia's growing number of EV drivers.
"We've talked about people living in apartments having very difficult times and doing silly things like extending cords in tricky places," he said.
"The councils are not going to be able to control some aspects of electric vehicle policy, like pricing, but planning is under their control."
Prof Dia said councils should roll out its chargers and reforms "quickly" to support swift adoption of the technology.
