Don’t want an EV? You’re not alone, not that you’d know it listening to Labor

We gave EVs a go, especially Teslas, which for many drivers served more as yacht-like status indicators than as means of transport, but they’re not for most writes Tim Blair.

Poor EV owners. They’ve fallen for the same dumb hype that saw a previous generation of Australian car buyers also reduced to figures of pity and scorn.

There was a time when electric vehicles genuinely did seem to be the future of personal transport. Numbers were increasing. Recharging stations were popping up all over the place. Celebs drove them!

But the EV market is now collapsing like Australian batsmen. “Battery electric vehicle sales in Australia have flattened in recent months,” University of NSW academic Milad Haghani and his Swinburne colleague Hadi Ghaderi reported in October.

“The latest data reveal a sharp 27.2 per cent year-on-year decline (overall new vehicle sales were down 9.7 per cent) in September. Tesla Model Y and Model 3 cars had an even steeper drop of nearly 50 per cent.

“Sales also fell in August (by 18.5 per cent) and July (1.5 per cent). There’s a clear downward trend.”

EV sales have flatlined in recent months. Picture: Daily Telegraph / Monique Harmer

There are many reasons for this, which we’ll get to in a minute, but readers of a certain age may first be reminded by the EV sales slump of an earlier local vehicular debacle.

In 1973, the Leyland P76 sedan was launched to considerable consumer interest. A rival to Ford, Holden and Chrysler, the P76’s unusual design was informed by a then-extraordinary level of market research.

Potential buyers told Leyland what they wanted in a car, and Leyland believed them. This turned out to be a mistake as big as the P76’s boot. Buyers, you see, had told Leyland they wanted a boot that was absolutely enormous.

Specifically, they wanted something large enough to carry a 44-gallon drum. Apparently there was a great deal of 44-gallon drum delivery carried out by private motorists during the mid 1970s.

The much-lamented Leyland P76.

Legendary former TV personality Darrell Eastlake with his Leyland P76 car.

So Leyland bet big, literally, on the P76. And they bet wrong. After an initial sales surge, demand died. It turned out that Australian drivers, beyond those enthusiastic early adopters, wanted something more besides brutal wedge styling and a boot like a Kardashian’s arse.

Leyland’s geopolitical timing also wasn’t great. The year of the P76’s launch was also the year of the OPEC oil embargo. Large cars took a sales hit, none more so than Leyland’s local folly – despite all that market research, and despite the P76 featuring several examples of technological progress.

Which brings us to our current flock of super-advanced electro-techno buggies that nobody wants. Academics Haghani (a “senior lecturer of urban analytics and resilience”) and Ghaderi (a “professor in supply chain and freight innovation”) rightly point out in their piece for The Conversation that reduced government incentives for EVs are causing reduced sales.

NSW and South Australia ended their $3000 rebates in January. NSW also deleted a stamp duty payback for new and used EVs up to a value of nearly $80,000. Victoria’s $3000 rebate ended in 2023. Queensland’s $6000 EV deal was withdrawn in September.

Without those incentives, market forces are forcing EVs out of the market. But our university mates see further reasons for EV abandonment.

Teslas have become a status symbol for some. Picture: Patrick Pleul / POOL / AFP

“Misinformation and politicisation are rampant,” they wrote, blaming “persistent misconceptions”, “exaggerated concerns”, “myths” and “false narratives”.

Put this panic about misinfo in the misinfo file. The truth about EVs is that – just as with the P76 – Australians have figured them out.

It’s really very basic. We don’t care to pay thousands of dollars more for cars with few additional cabin features above normal vehicles. Sometimes, in fact, EV buyers pay more for less. EV heating and cooling systems are famously rubbish.

We don’t enjoy waiting for 30 minutes to recharge. Nor are we entertained by recharging stations that require a new phone app download, or that feature broken chargers.

Or are located in sketchy, unserviced backstreets.

We who enjoy driving find little pleasure in commanding vastly overweight battery slabs with wheels.

Australians gave the P76 a go, before the design’s style, quality and engineering shortcomings became overwhelming.

We also gave EVs a go, especially Teslas, which for many drivers served more as yacht-like status indicators than as means of transport. Then we moved on from EVs as well.

One important difference between then and now, however. Then-PM Gough Whitlam dismissed the P76 as a dud, and his future treasurer Bill Hayden called it a lemon.

“Consumers vote with their dollars, and they were not voting for the P76,” Hayden told parliament in 1974, the year the car was discontinued. “It was as simple as that.”

Fifty years later, consumers are not voting for EVs – yet support for EVs is still universal among Labor MPs. How many of them would fit in a P76 boot?