Feature | EV Space
‘When’ not ‘if’ The road to embracing EVs in Australia By David Young
A strong undercurrent of change present in the automotive industry has gained in momentum over the past decade. Indeed, recently this current has grown to a raging torrent with landmark global events like COP26 guiding sectors like the automotive industry to put sustainability, and particularly sustainable and zero emission fuel sources, at the top of their list for investment. This is not new news. For a long time, the writing has been on the wall with countries like those in Europe embracing the change. Most recently this has been emphasised since Electric Vehicles or ‘EVs’ account for 75 percent of new vehicle sales in Norway. With other countries like Sweden, Iceland and the Netherlands also closing in on an EV majority share of the new car market.To many the future of a majority share of electric vehicles globally is inevitable, and all for the better. Despite this, Australia lags in the EV space. But what could the industry do to address this shortfall? Well to find out we’ve sat down with an expert in the area of EV policy and the EV market in Australia, Dr Jonathan Spear the acting CEO at Infrastructure Victoria.
Being at Infrastructure Victoria since its inception Dr Spear has had a front seat to a lot of the important issues that the independent think tank has tackled. One that has been noticeably ever present is this shift to an EV market. Most recently Infrastructure Victoria has been at the forefront by mapping out the path which would take us, as a State, and perhaps indeed a country forward to this future. This includes the delivery of their latest 30-year infrastructure strategy, tabled in the Victorian State Parliament in August of this year, and also the wide ranging publications on the impact of automated and zero emission vehicles which were published in 2018. When it comes to EVs Dr Spear and his team believe they have identified the four barriers we need to burst through. He describes these as: 1. The need for better consumer information on levels of electric vehicle performance. 2. The requirement for charging infrastructure. 3. Communication that indicates to customers that the sticker price is only one small element of cost for EVs and that lower maintenance and running costs will be of more benefit; and 4. The need for certainty around the date that traditional internal combustion engine vehicles will stop being sold from new car showrooms. But even with all these barriers Dr Spear believes that it’s not an ‘if’ but a ‘when’ question that Australia must consider when it looks at the electrification of the personal, commercial and freight transport sectors. “Each of these are important enablers of a shift to an Australia which embraces, rather than resists, the inevitability of EVs,” he says. Governments both federal and state will have key roles in addressing these barriers. But the good news for Australia’s automotive industry is that we can be right in the thick of it when it comes to navigating this path to EV adoption.
16 | December 2021
