Australian EV Adoption Speeding Up, But..

EV uptake may be accelerating, but Australia needs to push the pedal to the metal to meet emissions goals says the Electric Vehicle Council.

A new report from the Electric Vehicle Council indicates more than an estimated 83,000 electric vehicles are on Australia’s roads now¹. It shouldn’t be long before the 100,000 milestone is reached considering there were only around 44,000 at the beginning of 2022.

Some other highlights from the Council’s Australian Electric Vehicle Industry Recap 2022:

• 39,353 new electric vehicles were purchased last year.
• The top 3 EV models purchased in Australia in 2022 were the Tesla Model 3 (10,887), Tesla Model Y (8,717) and BYD Atto 3 (2,113).
• 70 different EV models were delivered to Australian customers last year². 38 were BEVs and 32 were PHEVs.
• 3.8 per cent of all new cars purchased in 2022 were electric. In 2021, it was just under 2 per cent.
• The number of public chargers increased from 3,413 in 2021 to 4,943 in 2022.
• Fast DC chargers were up from 231 to 365.

You can download the full Australian Electric Vehicle Industry Recap 2022 here. You’ll need to provide your name and email address to get access, but I think it’s safe to suggest the Electric Vehicle Council are the good guys .

Fuel Efficiency Standards Crucial For Picking Up Pace

Commenting on last year’s results and the road ahead for EVs in Australia, Electric Vehicle Council Chief Executive Behyad Jafari said:

“If you think you’re seeing more EVs on the road than you used to, you’re right, but if we want to hit our national emissions targets we won’t make it on this current trajectory,” Mr. Jafari stated. “We can definitely hit these goals, but not without an ambitious fuel efficiency standard to expand the supply of EVs to Australia. The federal government should introduce this standard this year as a matter of urgency.”

Why fuel efficiency standards are so important to improving supply of electric vehicles into the Australian market – and improving affordability – is explained in detail here.

To its credit and unlike its predecessor, the Albanese Government is giving this a red-hot go. In August last year it signalled it was time to have an “orderly and sensible discussion” concerning the role vehicle fuel efficiency standards could play, and in September a broad consultation on Australia’s first National Electric Vehicle Strategy commenced. In the discussion paper, the term “fuel efficiency standards” was mentioned 18 times.

More than 500 submissions were made, and 440 of those were published last Friday. Among them was the Electric Vehicle Council’s contribution.

Mr. Jafari says there’s no reason for Australia to continue to be a laggard on EV uptake.

“The enthusiasm is there in abundance, we just need our governments to continue the policy reform that makes it easy to transition away from the exhaust pipe.”

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/ev-uptake-australia-mb2822/