Farmers question millions in taxpayer subsidies for EV truck roll-out

The federal government is awarding millions of dollars’ worth of grants to some of Australia’s biggest businesses to purchase new electric trucks.

Farmers are questioning millions of dollars’ worth of federal government subsidies to big businesses to fast-track heavy vehicle electrification.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has awarded major private businesses Linfox, owned by billionaire Lindsay Fox, almost $20 million dollars and Toll Holdings $9m to purchase battery electric trucks and build charging infrastructure.

The grants are from ARENA’s $500m Driving the Nation Fund, which was announced two years ago as an investment in cheaper, cleaner transport.

ARENA is an independent statutory authority established in 2012 by the Gillard government to support Australia’s transition to net zero emissions, which the Albanese government pledged to reach by 2050.

Wimmera and Northern Grampians mixed farmer Ryan Milgate questioned why public money was going into private balance sheets.

“I’m all for validating the technology but if the technology is sustainable, these businesses are going to do it anyway, we don’t have to give them money to do it,” he said.

Mr Milgate, who is the Victorian Farmers Federation’s grains council vice-chair, said the focus of public money should be on improving existing energy infrastructure to allow farmers to consider the uptake of electric vehicles.

“I don’t even have enough power to run my welder properly. I think if the government was serious about this, they’d be looking at our energy infrastructure and not how they can mine it from the regions and put it into the city but put in local solutions to allow us to capitalise on this,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tests out one of the electric trucks at the official launch of the Team Global Express Battery Electric Vehicle fleet, which received a $20.1 million grant from ARENA. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

The $19.6m awarded to Linfox will subsidise the deployment of 26 battery electric trucks and charging infrastructure across three sites in Victoria, South Australia and Queensland over three years.

The rollout will track the performance of heavy EV trucks over longer distances, multiple duty cycles a day and at scale.

Toll’s $9m will help the company purchase 28 battery electric trucks and build infrastructure at 10 customer and Toll-owned sites across Australia.

Nhill cropping farmer Rob Cole, who owns six heavy vehicles to transport grain to the port, questioned the commercial viability of the technology.

“If there’s a dollar in it, private enterprises would have done it off their own bat. Very entrepreneurial people don’t need money thrown at them,” Mr Cole said.

Rupanyup farmer Andrew Weidermann said any trial subsidised by the federal government should involve all types of business.

“Subsidising big business is probably not going to cut the mustard as people see it.”

ARENA chief executive Darren Miller said the projects assisted the industry in assessing the technical and commercial feasibility of electrifying heavy vehicle fleets and showing the transport and freight sectors what was possible when decarbonising heavy vehicles.

An ARENA spokesman said as part of receiving funding, “all recipients must provide leanings about their project. These come in the form of knowledge sharing reports”.

A Linfox spokeswoman was unable to comment on whether the charging infrastructure would be shared, given taxpayers’ assistance to purchase it.