Breaking Down Australia’s Electric Vehicle Strategy, and How You Can Have Your Say

Work is progressing on a National Electric Vehicle Strategy, a plan for the future of electric vehicles in Australia. Now, the public is being invited to make submissions on how they’d like to see the strategy take shape. Back in August, Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced the strategy would be opened up in September for submissions regarding fuel efficiency standards.

Australia has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to EVs. That’s why we’re releasing a consultation paper on our National EV Strategy, to improve affordability, supply and boost uptake of EVs. pic.twitter.com/rsv88ChZwQ

— Chris Bowen (@Bowenchris) September 28, 2022

“This feedback will help shape a truly national Strategy to ensure Australians can access the best transport technologies and help meet our emission reduction targets. The Strategy will aim to provide social, economic, business, health and environmental benefits. This will make sure we capture opportunities and have an orderly transition to transport electrification,” the submissions page reads While no submissions have been made just yet, we’ll be looking out for any interesting ones over the next month before it closes on October 31, 2022. “It is a breath of fresh air to see a federal government take this issue so seriously, acting on a national policy within the first months of its administration,” said Behyad Jafari, the CEO of the Electric Vehicles Council. “Australia can absolutely be an EV powerhouse, employing Australians to build products right across the EV supply chain. But we won’t realise those opportunities while our standards lag the rest of the world. The most urgent next step from this process is a strong fuel efficiency standard that reflects best practice.” We’ve long talked about fuel efficiency standards with our coverage of electric vehicles, but it’s hard to deny that they’re one of the most important things to the uptake of electric vehicles in Australia. Fuel efficiency standards are rules put in place on automakers to reduce the emissions used by the vehicle. They’re a cap placed on a fleet of cars, incentivising the development of more efficient vehicles, strictly regulating the emissions output of cars. We’re one of the only countries in the OECD that doesn’t have them, and without them, car companies have no reason to prioritise Australia as a market for electric cars, instead sending petrol vehicles here in greater numbers. After this, there are of course other concerns, such as the cost of electric vehicles, grid capacity for charging and energy tariffs for EV charging station companies. We’re bound to see submissions from automakers, lobbying groups and electric vehicle organisations (like EV charging station companies) over the next month. You can view the submissions page online.

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