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T here ’ s no doubt about it – electric vehicles are having a moment . An important , global moment at that . Almost one in five new car registrations in the EU in 2021 were for electric vehicles , with Norway clocking a whopping 65 per cent of new car sales .
China is the world ’ s biggest electric vehicle market , with sales on track to meet 20 per cent well before the 2025 target . In a nation of 1.4 billion souls , that ’ s a fair few electric vehicles . Carmakers like Audi , Nissan and Mazda are even setting impressive timelines to become 100 per cent electric by the early 2030s .
Yet in Australia , less than two per cent of new car sales are electric . Yep , a measly two per cent . Just 20,665 vehicles sold in 2021 in our car-obsessed nation were electric , and it ’ s estimated our wide brown land is home to as few as 35,000 .
FALLING BEHIND Why are we lagging behind the rest of the world ? One of the biggest reasons is simple geography , says Chris Jones , president of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association .
“ We ’ re a small right-hand drive market on the opposite side of the world , so we ’ re typically the last to get any new vehicles unless it ' s specifically been built for our market ,” he says .
“ Manufacturers will go for the easiest , most insatiable market first , so that is left-hand drive , northern hemisphere . When you can put all of your manufactured cars on a train and send them to the country next door , that ' s where they go first .”
Another big barrier is upfront sticker price . Even though the average electric vehicle driver saves $ 1,600 on fuel costs each year and about $ 400 on maintenance , the cost of a new vehicle is a lot more than the average petrol-powered car .
“ An electric vehicle has a big battery in it , and the battery is an expensive piece of kit ,” says Ross De Rango , head of energy and infrastructure at the Electric Vehicle Council . “ There is a substantial difference in cost between an internal combustion engine vehicle and the equivalent battery electric vehicle .”
And then there ’ s government regulations – or lack thereof – which make the local market decidedly unappealing for carmakers . Europe , the US and many other developed economies have fuel efficiency standards that penalise vehicle makers if they don ' t bring enough low-emission vehicles to market . “ We don ' t have those standards in Australia ,” says De Rango . This means carmakers have a strong financial incentive to send most of their electric vehicles to those markets rather than shipping them all the way to Australia .
TRANSITIONING TO ELECTRIC The barriers are big , but here ’ s the thing : Aussies want to go electric . Recent research by The Australia Institute found the majority of us support the introduction of a government policy subsidising the purchase of new electric vehicles as well as a ban on the sale of new fossil fuelled cars by 2035 .
Jones says introducing regulations that discourage the sale of petrol cars will have a huge impact on the viability of an electric vehicle market . “ It ' s a minimal financial input kind of change that will bring about really rapid change . All of a sudden , we will become an attractive market to manufacturers to sell electric vehicles .”
Some states have introduced subsidies for new electric vehicle purchases . Prices , too , are expected to come down . “ A few years ago , if you wanted to buy an electric vehicle , it was a Tesla at $ 150,000 . Now you can buy an electric vehicle from MG in the $ 40,000 to $ 45,000 price range ,” De Rango says . “ The vehicles are getting cheaper , and that will continue to happen as battery costs fall .”
With global demand for electric vehicles expected to take off in 2022 , Jones says Australia will eventually catch up to the rest of the world . “ Fifty per cent of all new vehicle sales being electric by 2030 is unambitious . I ' m pretty sure we ' ll get there by 2025 – we are a car crazy nation .” n
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