South Australia has scored 6/10 rating in the Electric Vehicle Council policy scorecard, after releasing its $18.3 million Electric Vehicle Action Plan, but also flagging its intention to introduce road user charges for EVs.
The ratings are contained in EVC's State of Electric Vehicles 2021 report, launched today. The report also finds 8688 electric vehicles were sold in the first half 2021, already eclipsing the 6,900 electric vehicles sold over the whole of 2020.
NSW (9/10) narrowly beats the ACT (8/10) and the NT and Tas (7/10). Qld, SA, Vic, and WA scored 6/10. The federal government gets the lowest rating with 3/10, after failing to make meaningful inroads in line with other comparable jurisdictions around the world.
Electric Vehicle Council chief executive Behyad Jafari said SA was at a tipping point.
"The $18.3 million Electric Vehicle Action Plan, with a focus on co-funding for charging infrastructure, was a very welcome announcement," Mr Jafari said.
"We also note the road user charges flagged in 2020 were delayed and are now being reconsidered. South Australia has also announced a desire to see half of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030 and all new sales electric by 2035, however it has not yet detailed plans to achieve these goals.
"To increase its grade, the state should increase the scope of its strategy to include financial incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles and delay the introduction of road user charges until the market for electric vehicles has matured.
"The movement across most states and territories is now generally positive and that's providing greater confidence to private sector investors, which will pave the way for more places to charge and better services to support e-mobility. The chief headwind at the moment is, unfortunately, a continued lack of leadership on electric vehicles at the federal level. After promising a national strategy two years ago, the Federal Government has failed to deliver.
"We need to see more electric vehicle models in Australia, particularly at lower price points. That's happening slowly, but if we want to accelerate the process and attract the globally limited electric vehicle supply, we need policies enacted at the national level, like fuel efficiency standards.
"Australia has more to gain than most countries on electric vehicles. If transition well we'll be able to meet our net zero goals, break our dependency of foreign oil, and improve our air quality.
"When you consider the rhetoric that was being pushed last federal election, the EV discussion in this country has come a long way quite quickly."
