Last year in Australia, just under 2000 electric cars were sold, with the majority of those going to commercial buyers. When you compare that to the 1.1 million new cars sold in Australia last year, it really paints the picture.
So what’s the issue? Well, there seems to be two: pricing and dealers.
As with every emerging technology, the initial entry cost is often high. The cheapest electric car on the market in Australia right now is the Nissan Leaf, which retails for around the $40K mark. But aside from the electric drive-train, everything else about the car was simply on par with vehicles worth half the price. It’s an extremely hard sell for the uneducated car buyer.
Your next bet is the BMW i3 which starts at $64K before on road costs. That’s damn expensive for a small hatchback, even if it is one of the best cars of the last few years.
Lastly, we are left with the Tesla Model S. A car that has finally got a formula to sell in some half decent numbers.
It’s a luxury car that offers no compromises to other cars in its category. It’s quicker than a Mercedes-Benz AMG C63, yet is completely electric and will end up costing you way less over time thanks to fuel and servicing savings.
Australia’s first Tesla owner, and founder of internet company Internode, Simon Hackett, told Business Insider he thinks the key to fixing the price problem is with government tax incentives.
“Only the ACT offers stamp duty reduction for EV purchases and other states are lagging behind here and there are no federal tax incentives for EV ownership either.”
He might be on to something too. If you check out the situation in the USA, where electric vehicle adoption is rising fast, federal and state governments are offering between $US7K-10K worth of tax offset incentives. In fact, Australia is the only first world country that does not offer substantial incentives to offset the upfront purchase costs of electric cars.
The tax incentives will likely pay off in spades too, with Hackett pointing out the likely saving to the health budget in Australia from reduced respiratory illness over time, which will be enormous. It is in fact air quality that drives much of the presence of zero emission vehicle ownership incentives in the USA and Europe now.
Source: Harry, Tucker, businessinsider.com.au
If you're interested, please check out this great in-depth article on the Car Industry's Call to the Australian Government to step-up-to-the plate to do more on electric car uptake.
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