Australia Lacking EV Leadership, Says Car Industry

FCAI and car companies challenge federal and state governments to get serious about delivering cohesive national policy supporting electric vehicles

Remember Back in 2019 when Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared the Labor opposition’s aspirational 50 percent EV sales goal by 2030 was going to “end the weekend”?

That might have played well on the coal-loving backbenches and in the boardrooms of the fossil-fuel industry, but rhetorical flourishes don’t add up to an actual policy. And that’s hurting Aussies who want to plug in.

Limited electrified vehicle production is being allocated to places where incentives are the greatest and/or restrictions on CO2 emissions are the most painful.

As the Federal Government’s ideological constraints and contradictions extend its environmental and electric vehicle policy vacuum, Australia is slipping down the shipping list for brands such as electrified evangelist Volkswagen.

At one time the new-generation MEB-based ID3 and ID4 BEVs were going to be here around 2022 – at least two years after they went on sale elsewhere – but Volkswagen Australia boss Michael Bartsch now says maybe late-2023. “While we have the current legislative environment here in Australia, there really is no imperative to fast-track or drive the EV introduction to Australia,” he said.

The industry rolled out its own voluntary CO2 reductions code in 2020. Think of it as a self-imposed stick