The Morrison government released its electric vehicle policy with a theme of ‘choice not mandate’ governing the policy guidelines.

What has the government included?

○ Total spend: $250 million.

○ $178 million of new funding to help build charging stations for heavy commercial vehicles, passenger cars and households.

○ Deploy charging infrastructure in over 400 businesses, 50,000 households and 1,000 public charging stations.

○ Priority initiative – encouraging governments and large corporations to buy EVs for business fleets.

And what has been left out?

○ No take-up targets for EVs.

○ No phase-out deadline or timeframe for petrol cars.

○ No specific details or targets for the ‘fleet first’ government strategy to encourage governments to buy EVs.

○ The Australian government has only promised to ‘evaluate’ the introduction of the Euro 6 noxious emissions standard, over time.

○ The government projects battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars to make up 30% of new car sales by 2030, but has rejected the introduction of incentives to help drive demand for a cleaner mode of transport.

Where does this put the Morrison government on the global scale?

Given South Korea and Norway plan to phase out sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2025, and US states have plans for the same phase out by 2035, Australia is well behind with no target of a petrol phase out in sight.