South Australia not doing enough to encourage EVs: report

The Electric Vehicle Council has relegated the State to the bottom of the heap in an assessment of government electric vehicle strategies. See what South Australians really think.

South Australia’s electric vehicle strategy has been given a “fail” mark in a new report.

In the Electric Vehicle Council’s “EV Policy Scorecard”, South Australia scores four out of 10 for its plans to encourage EV uptake.

And readers have backed up the result with their own scathing comments.

“Even the kids won’t steal them,” said one reader. “They have to pause their high speed getaways to recharge the stolen vehicles.”

“They are useless to many because of the distances to so many towns classed as outback,” said another reader.

“If EVs were any good, they wouldn’t need subsidies.Thank God we had more than just EVs in this flooding crisis!” said another.

“SA has previously experienced significant power shortages and still have a long way to go to building a secure and robust grid with plenty of spare capacity,” said another reader. “The last thing they need are EV’s sucking the life out of their grid.”

South Australia was marked down for not doing enough to reduce carbon emissions from its trucks and buses, as well as failing to support electric bikes and scooters.

It was also criticised for not allocating sufficient funding to charging infrastructure and not providing incentives for local businesses to become involved in the EV supply chain.

South Australia needs to invest in charging infrastructure, the EV Council says. Picture: Supplied.

The EV Council says South Australia provides buyer incentives worth about $3414, placing it behind the ACT ($6708), New South Wales ($4500) Queensland ($3864) and Western Australia ($3500).

It also trails on public charging stations with 210 outlets compared with 647 in NSW, 455 in Victoria, 368 in Queensland and 294 in Western Australia.

New South Wales and the ACT scored eight out of 10 on the scorecard, while Queensland scored six and Victoria five.

The report noted that sales of electric cars have risen by 65 per cent this year.

It found that despite a recent increase in EV sales, Australia still trails the rest of the world.

Sales of EVs and PHEVs make up about 3.4 per cent of Australian sales and 2.3 per cent of South Australian sales.

The Tesla Model Y was the best-selling SUV in September. Picture: Thomas Wielecki.

The EVC’s head of policy, Jake Whitehead, says more needs to be done to encourage growth.

“It’s great to see so much momentum behind EV sales in Australia, but to put our 3.4 per cent in context – Germany sits at 26 per cent, the UK at 19 per cent, and California at 13 per cent. The global average is 8.6 per cent so Australia has a long, long way to come,” said Dr Whitehead.

The best selling fully electric vehicles are the Tesla Model 3 (8647), Tesla Model Y (5376) and Hyundai Kona Electric (897).

The EVC has called on the Federal Government to introduce an enforceable CO2 emissions target for carmakers and to ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles nationally by 2035.

The EV Council says Australia needs a CO2 emissions target to encourage EV uptake. Picture: Thomas Wielecki.

But Sean Hanley, the head of sales and marketing of Australia’s most popular car brand Toyota, poured cold water on the idea of abandoning petrol and diesel engines in the short term.

“We agree you’ve got to get to carbon neutral. All we disagree with is how and when you get there and to be honest some of this belief you can go full electric in 10 years in this country and satisfy the punters, satisfy the owners, satisfy what they want to do in cars is a very difficult proposition.”

Mr Hanley said a range of technologies were needed to reach carbon neutrality, including hybrid vehicles. Roughly a third of Toyota sales are hybrids.

Originally published as South Australia not doing enough to encourage EVs: report