Net zero 2050 ‘impossible’ without electric vehicle policy
Sydney Morning Herald
July 18, 2021


Australia cannot hit net zero emissions by 2050 without a policy for the transport sector, experts say, and it must be focused on driving people to buy electric vehicles.

In the first of a series of industry reports, the Grattan Institute argues strict regulations are needed to phase out petrol cars with emissions standards that tighten to zero by 2035.

The Grattan Institute says the federal government needs new policy to bring electric vehicles to the market or risk economic pain in years to come.


It says a carbon price is the most economically efficient way to address emissions, but as that has been rejected by both of Australia’s major political parties sector-specific policies are needed to reduce greenhouse gases industry by industry.

Grattan’s report says “there are no federal government policies to reduce transport emissions at any significant scale” and it called for tax breaks on electric vehicles and swift rollout of emissions standards because the national fleet “takes more than 20 years to replace” and vehicles sold after that date could be in operation after 2050.

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“Government should encourage a thriving market for zero emissions vehicles by exempting them from inefficient taxes such as import duties, luxury car tax and motor vehicles stamp duty,” the report says.

But the think tank warns that “relying on technology and market forces alone won’t be enough to get on track for net zero 2050” because the crossover point when the purchase price of an electric vehicle became cheaper than petrol or diesel vehicles was expected to come after 2025.

This means there would likely be many petrol and diesel cars on the road after 2050, given the average life of an Australian vehicle is more than 20 years.

In that scenario, government would have to rush out expensive and inefficient emissions reduction measures to bring down transport emissions in the decades before 2050, such as funding a “cash-for-clunkers-style program”, the report says.



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Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “preferable” climate change objective for Australia is to reach net zero by 2050.

But Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, a long-time sceptic of climate action, said on Sunday that he would consider a net zero deadline but only once the financial impacts had been mapped out.

“We want to see exactly what’s involved and we want to see exactly what the cost is,” Mr Joyce told ABC’s Insiders.

The Morrison government’s climate policy centres on a technology road map to drive uptake of cleaner energy sources, lowering the cost of hydrogen fuel, using green steel and aluminium as well as carbon sequestration in agriculture.

But it has not indicated any plan to satisfy Mr Joyce’s demand to model the cost of meeting a national emissions reduction target or the cost to industry from setting an emissions reduction deadline.

Grattan’s energy program director Tony Wood said the best-option carbon price was “on the nose” in Australia but Grattan had developed policy alternatives because the institute “operates on a principle that we’d rather have a second or third best policy that actually works rather than the best approach no one adopts”.

“We’ve go to start soon and get these vehicles into the market,” Mr Wood said.

The motor industry pleaded with the government in March to adopt its own policy that requires new cars sold to reduce their emissions by 4 per cent each year over the next decade and 3 per cent for new heavy SUVs and light commercial vehicles.

Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood says the federal government must act now to help the transport sector switch to clean electric vehicles.
Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood says the federal government must act now to help the transport sector switch to clean electric vehicles. CREDIT:DANIEL MUNOZ


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The federal government’s Future Fuels strategy ruled out subsidies for electric vehicles and instead focused on encouraging businesses to use plug-in hybrid and electric cars for their fleets by funding charging stations.

Mr Taylor said subsidising cars for private sales would cost taxpayers $195 to $747 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent while “we can abate now at around $16 from the Emissions Reduction Fund, so it’s just not value for money”.

“We are optimistic about how quickly the technology cost will reduce for other electric vehicles compared to traditional cars,” said Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor.

Grattan said Australia had “suffered more than a decade of policy uncertainty on climate change” and “politic

How abou electric buses?

"Report: Philadelphia’s Electric Bus Fleet in Complete Shambles
July 19, 2021
tags: Electric Cars

By Paul Homewood







image

More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.

The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city’s transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city’s concerns.

The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant. Philadelphia defended the investment with claims that the electric buses would require less maintenance than standard combustion engine counterparts.

"There’s a lot less moving parts on an electric bus than there is on an internal combustion engine," SEPTA chief Jeffrey Knueppel said in June 2019. Knueppel retired from the post just months later.

Proterra, which had Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on its board of directors when Philadelphia pulled the buses off the streets last year, has been highlighted by the Biden administration as a business of the future. President Joe Biden visited the company’s factory in April and pledged in his initial infrastructure package proposal to include federal money for the electric vehicle market. The company has since been touted by top officials including White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, who in a public meeting asked Proterra’s CEO how the federal government could spur demand for Proterra buses.

The cost of Proterra’s electric buses has gained attention in recent weeks. On a recent trip by Biden to La Crosse, Wis., it was revealed that two buses the city ordered from Proterra for $1.5 million in 2018 have still not been delivered. Over the past five days, Proterra’s stock price has fallen over 25 percent.

Philadelphia’s Proterra buses were first rolled out for the 2016 DNC convention with a promise that the city was "plugging into an emissions free future."

Granholm was on Proterra’s board from 2017 until earlier this year. It was during that time that both SEPTA and Proterra learned that the heavier buses were cracking, according to the WHYY report.

Philadelphia placed the Proterra buses in areas where it thought they could succeed but quickly learned it was mistaken. Two pilot routes selected in South Philadelphia that were relatively short and flat compared with others in the city were too much for the electric buses.

"Even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge," WHYY reporter Ryan Briggs wrote. "Officials also quickly realized there wasn’t room at the ends of either route for charging stations."

Similar problems have been found in other cities that partnered with Proterra. Duluth, Minn., which, like Philadelphia, waited three years for its Proterra buses to be delivered, ultimately pulled its seven buses from service "because their braking systems were struggling on Duluth’s hills, and a software problem was causing them to roll back when accelerating uphill from a standstill," according to the Duluth Monitor.

Proterra did not respond to a request for comment."

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/report-philadelphias-proterra-fleet-...

It seems not viable.