EV sales treble in the space of a year

The Electric Vehicle Council has released its ‘State of Electric Vehicles 2020’ report, highlighting improving consumer interest in electric cars, but also noting that government and industry are dragging their heels.

As the EVC points out, electric vehicle sales rose by 200 per cent for the full year, 2019, taking the number to 6718, spread across 28 distinct models. That’s 200 per cent extra... a tripling of the 2018 sales tally of 2216 vehicles.

Over the same year (2019), sales of internal-combustion cars were 7.8 per cent off the pace.

That said, the respective EV sales figure for 2019 – accounting for 0.6 per cent of the total market – is practically a rounding error. In other countries around the world, electric vehicles are already up to a 2.5 per cent share of the market.

Interestingly, however, for the first half of 2020, 3226 electric cars were sold, which places the EVs on broadly the same daily sales rate in 2019, despite the worsening market conditions this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The council cites VFACTS figures that reveal the total market has declined by around 20 per cent for the year to date, so the steady sales of electric vehicles points to further gains once the economy improves.

The council also takes comfort from a survey recently conducted by state motoring associations, the NRMA, RACV and RAA. Over half the consumers polled for the survey – 56 per cent – responded that they would consider buying an electric car for their next vehicle.

But there was some overlap with the 68 per cent of respondents who wanted the federal government to subsidise the purchase price of a new EV, something importers have also been demanding over the years.

And nearly as many respondents, 66 per cent, also wanted government to subsidise the cost of installing home recharging facilities.

Recharging was an important factor in committing to the purchase of a new EV, with 68 per cent wanting more public charging stations – something else to lay at the door of government. And 82 per cent of respondents identifying public charging stations as “important”.

To date, according to the council, there are 2307 public charging stations dotted around the nation, and 357 of those are the fast-charging type (50kW or better). That figure of 357 fast-chargers represents an improvement of over 40 per cent over the previous year, the council says.

Price remains a stumbling block, as does range, but the council revealed that almost 80 per cent of the surveyed respondents underestimated the range of current EVs available for sale.

The council and the car companies it represents are calling for the following action from government and the private sector in Australia:

• Government to implement a ‘national electric vehicle policy’ to ensure a diverse selection of EVs is made available to Aussie buyers,
• Industry to take up the supply-chain opportunity presented by processing locally-mined lithium for battery production,
• State governments to develop their own EV policies.

The report can be downloaded from the Electric Vehicle Council’s website.