Taxpayer support central to electric vehicle sales, leaked report says

14 June 2018
Canberra Times


Financial incentives are the best way to encourage Australians to buy electric cars, a leaked official report has found, putting pressure on the Turnbull government to overcome stiff internal opposition to taxpayer subsidies in the emerging sector.

A separate report to be released today found Australia remains an electric vehicle laggard despite a 67 per cent jump in sales last year.   


Financial incentives to reduce purchase costs are the best way to encourage electric vehicle uptake, an official report has found.


Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg earlier this year said the global electric car revolution is coming to Australia, and the right planning and policies would allow Australian consumers to benefit from the transport "revolution".

The government is not proposing any new subsidies or other financial incentives to encourage adoption of the technology.

However an official report obtained by Fairfax Media found financial incentives, particularly reductions in up-front purchase costs, were the strongest influence on consumer decisions to buy a plugged-in electric vehicle.


The market study was prepared by energy consultancy Energeia for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. It said a review of the plug-in vehicle market in Norway – a global leader in the uptake of the technology - found that financial incentives had the biggest influence on purchase decisions. Other incentives such as the use of transit lanes or reduced vehicle registrations played a supporting role.


Electric vehicles are key to reducing vehicle transport emissions.


“Any increase in direct Australian financial incentives” for plug-in vehicle adoption would improve the range of models available and drive consumer demand, it said, adding that policy settings in Australia, particularly federally, lagged “well behind leading international jurisdictions”.

A transition to electric vehicles is particularly critical for Australia, where transport activity - mostly cars and light commercial vehicles – is expected to be a main driver of greenhouse gas emissions to 2030.

Government backbenchers have previously warned against any subsidies to make electric cars price competitive, including Liberal MP Craig Kelly who said: "you'll have the rich person in Balmain buying a Tesla, subsidised by the bloke in Penrith who's driving a Corolla".

The Energeia report found that under a “likely action” scenario including changes to the fringe benefits and luxury car tax, plug-in electric vehicles would comprise all new vehicle sales in 2040 – or 1.89 million vehicles.


Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Behyad Jafari said the report showed that incentives for electric vehicles would benefit all Australians through cost savings and job creation. It would also reduce the nation's reliance on fuel imports, he said.

The findings coincide with a ClimateWorks report which found that 2284 electric vehicles were sold in Australia in 2017 – a jump of 67 per cent on the previous year. The report was funded by ARENA and written for the Electric Vehicle Council.

The number of models available in Australia also increased from 16 to 23 in that period. Most were expensive models, but five new electric vehicle models due to be introduced in the next 18 months would likely be priced at $60,000 or less.

However, electric vehicles still make up only 0.2 per cent of the Australian market, the report found. Electric vehicles comprise about 20 per cent of new car sales in Norway.   

In the past seven years Victorians purchased the highest number of electric vehicles, however the ACT had the highest per capita purchase rate.

The number of charging stations in Australia increased by 64 per cent in 2017 to 783 locations.

The ClimateWorks report found governments must "use financial incentives to address the cost and model availability barrier” to electric vehicle uptake. Other policies would also be required to support more charging infrastructure and consumer awareness.

Mr Frydenberg has previously pointed to existing support for the industry such as a discount on the luxury car tax threshold for low emission vehicles. On Thursday he said technology improvements were reducing the cost of electric vehicles and the rollout of charging infrastructure was growing each year.

"This report estimates that by 2025 there will be over 200,000 [electric vehicles] on our roads and over 800,000 by 2030 - a significant increase on the numbers today," he said.

Canberra man Peter Campbell and his wife own two electric vehicles - both purchased second hand. He said measures to lower the upfront cost would help encourage sales.

"The [overseas] markets where they've sold well have had substantial government incentives," Mr Campbell said.

A Tesla spokesman said while the initial cost for electric vehicles was higher, in the longer-term the cost of ownership was lower.

whiteknight wrote on Jun 15^th, 2018 at 7:11am:



I thought that LWNJ were against middle class weathfare, why are they trying to pressure the government to subsidise expensive toys for wealthy people to buy a second or third car subsidised courtesy of the taxpayer.

If you are against taxpayers funding the wealthy, then try to not be a bunch of fkken hypocrites, it does not look good.

lee wrote on Jun 15^th, 2018 at 1:00pm:

Lee is pretending to believe in free-markets but conveniently forgets that blood for oil wars exist for a reason!

TheFunPolice wrote on Jun 15^th, 2018 at 3:23pm:



Another fine comment from our resident un-medicated conspiraloon.

Good one, champ. 

the more electric cars the less oil needed ... even with the worse case of coal power plants at least the coal is coming from Australia and not the middle east. and big o loves coal

lee wrote on Jun 15^th, 2018 at 1:00pm:


and stinking deisel

Sir lastnail wrote on Jun 20^th, 2018 at 10:06pm:



What subsidy on diesel?

BigOl64 wrote on Jun 15^th, 2018 at 2:54pm:


have you ordered YOUR solar array system yet bigol64??