Inside Melbourne engineer’s plans to bring car production back

Richard Mazeika hopes to bring car production back to Melbourne. Not to produce SUVs or sedans, but electric race cars that can be partly assembled by their owner.

An engineer by trade, Mazeika has set up a business producing kit cars, which are a long-established form of individually constructed vehicles. His business will sell partly assembled or pre-assembled car kits, for use on the racetrack or even in the suburbs.

Sidewinder founder and CEO Richard Mazeika at the Electric SUV Expo in Melbourne.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Yes, the car can be registered to drive on the streets if it is partly assembled by the owner, despite missing a roof, windows, doors, airbags and anti-lock braking systems.

Bright orange, less than a metre tall and at a light weight of 700 kilograms, Mazeika’s first attempt at an electric race car is eye-catching and mixes simplicity with high technology. The model, which retails for $50,000 and can travel 200km/h, is targeted at people looking for a second electric vehicle to take racing on a sunny Sunday.

“Everything is composite, so there’s so little steel on it. It’s actually very high-tech because it’s all about getting the weight down as much as possible, as EVs are very sensitive to weight,” Mazeika said.

Mazeika thought of the business – called Sidewinder – while imagining how much fun it would be to have a race car that could be driven on the road.

“Originally, we planned on using a motorbike engine, but then I saw how well [electric vehicle maker] Tesla was going, and I could see the trajectory of the industry,” he said. The lithium battery-powered vehicle is “nice and simple” to build compared with a fuel car.

Mazeika said there was an untapped market for electric race cars, particularly in the US. “We’re aiming for a low-volume production line in Melbourne. And because the majority of the market is in the United States, we’ll probably keep research and development and low-volume production in Melbourne, and then we’ll have a higher production line in the US.”

The vehicle attracted plenty of attention at an electric vehicle car show this weekend. There, visitors took electrified vehicles out for test drives and admired – but didn’t touch – China’s Xpeng X2 flying car, visiting the southern hemisphere for the first time.

Australia already has among the biggest range of car brands in the world and consumer choice is about to soar as Chinese EVs flock here, with vehicles selling for as low as $30,000.

The XPeng flying car and Ray Evans, who is putting on the EV Car Show in Melbourne. Credit: Jason South

The number of car brands sold in Australia is tipped to rise from 68 to up to 80, pushing electric vehicle prices to all-time lows and accelerating the switch from petrol-fuelled cars.

“There will probably be another 10 brands in the next 12 months or so coming into Australia,” said Rohan Martin, chief executive of the National Automotive Leasing and Salary Packaging Association.

The car supply drought of the COVID pandemic is now a distant memory. Car sales hit a monthly record in July of close to 100,000, prompting suggestions Australians would buy 1.25 million new cars this year.

“The supply chains have caught up for Australia, they were a bit slower 12 to 18 months ago. There’s also price wars going on right now,” said Ray Evans, chief executive of the expo.

EVs will account for half of all new car sales by 2030, said Jason Clarke, an imported car enthusiast whose company will shortly sell Xpeng’s electric vehicles in Australia (the Chinese company makes a range of mainstream vehicles, as well as its experimental flying car).

Clarke said Chinese-made EVs are attracted to Australia because of its lack of tariffs on imported vehicles, the wealth of its citizens and healthy car sales.

Unlike the US and the EU, Australia does not slap tariffs on EV imports from China as the country does not have a car manufacturing industry to protect.

The US recently quadrupled its tariffs to more than 100 per cent on Chinese EVs to “protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices”, protecting conventional carmakers such as GM and Ford.

Clarke said China would transform Australia’s car market, similar to Japanese brand Toyota and Korean brand Hyundai.

“There’s state-of-the-start manufacturing going on, and that’s what Australians are about,” said Clarke. The Chinese are the largest makers of EVs and 10 years ahead of the market, said Evans.

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