Australia lags the developed world in electrical vehicle adoption and needs greater incentives to ensure we aren’t left behind, according to policymakers and EV experts.
Just 0.7 per cent of cars sold last year in Australia were electric, compared to 11 per cent in the UK and Europe, and up to 75 per cent in Norway.
“I don’t think a sustainable future is possible without electric transportation,” Slava Kozlovskii, the chief executive of evee, Australia’s first and largest electric car rental service, told Central News.
“It looks like every developed or developing country has some sort of incentive for electric cars… The most progressive one is Scandinavia.”
Norway leads the world, exempting electric vehicles from taxes, road tolls and parking fees.
Nash from the Tesla in the Gong YouTube channel is a doctor and Tesla enthusiast, who converted to electric vehicles after discovering petrol fumes triggered his daughter’s asthma.
“We are the only country in the world to have a tax on clean air,” said Nash in reference to Victoria’s recently passed law which taxes EV per kilometre of road use.
Despite the benefits of electric vehicles, Australia’s only incentives include reduced stamp duty and registration in some states, as well as reduced luxury car tax.
With carmakers like Volvo, General Motors and Jaguar putting deadlines on their production of petrol-powered cars, Australia urgently needs to move towards electric vehicles.
