FLEETDRIVE
Tiny sales , but is lack of supply the real cause ?
Australian sales of EVs , including plug-in hybrid EVs and Teslas in 2020 numbered 6900 , just 0.75 per cent of car sales and a tiny increase on the 6718 vehicles sold the previous year .
An often-forgotten reason for the poor sales comes from the fact that certain high selling EV models that sell well in Europe , the US and UK are simply not available in Australia .
The top-selling electric car in Europe in 2020 , the Volkswagen ID . 3 , won ' t be launched in Australia until at least 2023 . However , Volkswagen didn ' t ship any EVs to Australia in 2020 , despite many Australians asking to buy them .
" There isn ' t a day go by where we ' re not answering a query on when we ' ll be able to
supply an electric vehicle in Australia ," said Michael Bartsch , general manager of Volkswagen Group Australia . " We ' ll put those cars where we get the biggest commercial advantage , and the biggest commercial advantage of the moment , when you overlay the fines for not achieving the CO2 targets , is Europe ."
Despite the demand it seems Volkswagen ’ s head office in Germany won ’ t agree to shipping it to Australia because there ’ s little incentive for them as an EV manufacturer in this region . Volkswagen is positioned to become the world ' s largest EV maker having sold 212,000 units in 2020 – but to no great surprise not one of those came from Australia .
Electric Vehicle Council Chief Behyad Jafari agrees – noting that global manufacturers are noticing Australia ’ s lax environmental standards and reacting accordingly .
“ Australia ’ s inertia on EV has been noticed by the global auto sector , which now withholds the best and most affordable electric vehicles from our market ,” he said . “ A rapid transition to electric vehicles would clean our city air , drastically reduce our carbon emissions , and free us from our insecure dependence on foreign oil imports .”
ISSUE 28 APRIL 2021 / WWW . AFMA . ORG . AU 11