A new government analysis has forecast half the new cars sold in Australia in 2035 will be electric vehicles even if there is no policy support to drive change.
The report reinforces expert views that the opposition Labor Party’s pledge at the May general election to set a target of 50 per cent new car sales being electric by 2030 would not have been a significant a shift from a path the country is already on.
At the time Labor’s commitment prompted the conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to accuse the opposition of wanting to “end the weekend” by forcing people out of four-wheel drives and the Minister for Small Business, Michaelia Cash, to tell tradies only the LN? would “save their utes”.
The Liberal-National government has said it will introduce a national electric vehicle strategy to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 10 million tonnes by 2030, but is yet to release details.
The report published by the government’s Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economies examines the uptake of electric vehicles in 22 countries.
It found sales vary between nations but are expected to grow rapidly across the world in coming decades.
Modelling suggests the electric vehicle share of new car sales in Australia will rise from about 0.34 per cent today to eight per cent in 2025.
It is predicted to then leap to 27 per cent of new car sales in 2030 and 50 per cent in 2035 as prices of electric cars drops.
Behyad Jafari, chief executive of industry group the Electric Vehicle Council, said the report showed the transition to electric vehicles would happen “no matter what” and Australia would not need to do much to accelerate a local industry.
“As this report shows, the destination for Australia is predetermined.
“The choice is how much value and benefit we capture in getting there,” he said.
“Globally, there is some US$300bn being invested in the EV sector. Surely Australia should be getting a piece of the action.”
The report said battery cost was expected to more than halve by 2025 and continue to decline, but battery size and vehicle range would both increase to more than double by mid next decade before peaking.
“This means that the outlook is for a fairly constant battery price for EVs out to 2025, before the price starts to decline,” the report said.
It said a similar trajectory was expected for other manufacturing related costs.
The Infrastructure and Transport Department said the report set out what would be expected under existing policy settings and did not assume any additional government support, but noted some government agencies invested in electric vehicle infrastructure.
A department spokeswoman said electric car uptake in Australia was slow compared with some of the countries examined.
She said there would be a rapid change in new car sales once the technology became price competitive, but it would take some time for that to be fully reflected on Australian roads.
“There is usually a 10 to 15-year lag between new vehicle sales numbers and overall fleet numbers, so EVs are not expected to be a significant part of the passenger vehicle fleet until well into the 2030s,” the spokeswoman said.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last year compared the expected trajectory of EVs to that of the iPhone.
He said changes in battery technology and recharging infrastructure were gaining momentum in Europe, Asia and North America and would inevitably be replicated in Australia, and predicted people who mocked EVs would one day be driving them.
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