Nissan: Aussie EV pricing parity years away

Electric vehicles (EVs) are as much as a decade away from becoming cheaper than equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) models in Australia.

That’s the estimate of Nissan’s global EV director Nic Thomas, who was in Australia recently for the launch of the second-generation Nissan LEAF — a small battery-powered Japanese hatchback that costs about $50,000.

While Thomas made a presentation at the launch that quoted a Morgan Stanley study forecasting price crossover between EVs and ICE by 2024-2025, that was dealing specifically with EV-friendly western Europe.

Later, in an interview with carsales.com.au, he admitted the Australian situation was not as clear-cut.

“Using the same logic [as the Morgan Stanley study] it seems likely that Australia will cross over in the second half of the 2020s, depending on emissions regulations,” Thomas said.

Of course, the emissions regulations rider is a huge one as the federal government has yet to announce its roll-out path for tougher CO2 levels and stricter fuel standards, both of which will impact ICE vehicle pricing and aid EVs.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) is the lobbying voice of the car brands to the federal government and it has reopened discussions on vehicle standards since the election.

Thomas said Nissan itself wouldn’t push the federal government for regulations that would make EVs more popular more quickly.

“It’s not for me to tell the Australian government what to do,” said Thomas. “Ultimately we go where the opportunity is.

“If the government makes some moves then there will be an opportunity to move more quickly here and we would love that.

“In the meantime we have got all these other opportunities to show people the value of owning the new LEAF; not only is it a brilliant car but you can do all this other stuff with it.

“You can save money through owning it, you can take yourself almost off the grid at home, there’s a lot of opportunity there and what’s what we can work with today.”

Thomas rolled through a shopping list of government initiatives that have helped boost EVs in other countries.

“In the markets where EVs have really taken off there was either a strong government policy or another strong rationale for customers to adopt them.

“We don’t see that strong government policy in Australia today and those government policies have typically been subsidies to make cars cheaper, or being able to drive in the bus lane or the high occupancy car pool lane, or free parking in the city attracting commuters into the vehicles.

“We don’t have those policies in Australia today and I’d love to see them, but that’s up to the government.”

One thing Thomas was steadfast about in all this was that a crossover in pricing between EVs and ICE would inevitably happen, even if its timing varied significantly country by country.

“The crossover is about the reduction of battery prices and I am pretty certain Morgan Stanley is being too conservative about the price of batteries because I know what price we are buying batteries at today.

“I am not too worried about that part.

“The other part is the rising cost of petrol and diesel and that’s also causing a crossover.”

Once that happens the need for government assistance will be a moot point, Thomas said.

“Ultimately we need to stand by ourselves and we need to be a sustainable business. We need to sell cars without incentives from the government and to do that we need to keep driving the cost of the batteries down.”