On Tuesday, the Australian Prime minister revealed a policy to encourage people and to boost electric car sales. It came after his government was accused of being a climate change laggard at a United Nations summit in Scotland.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated that the cost of the technology would come down over time. Also, in the Australian policy, no subsidies would be provided to consumers of the electric car.
“The costs of technology are coming down, and that means the choices available to Australians and right around the world are becoming more accessible, so our plans are all about supporting those choices,” Morrison said.
“Our plans aren’t about sending a lot of taxpayers’ money off to big multinationals to get costs down. They’ll do that themselves. They have a keen interest in doing that,” he added.
The AU$250 million ($185 million) initiative would work with private companies to speed up the installation of 50,000 charging and hydrogen refueling stations.
By 2030, the conservative government anticipates battery electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to account for 30% of new passenger and light commercial truck sales in Australia.
Electric vehicles account for less than 2% of new vehicle sales in Australia. The transportation industry is a major reason why Australia is one of the world’s worst greenhouse gas emitters per capita.
The proposal faced criticism by electric vehicle advocacy groups.
The strategy, according to Behyad Jafari, chief executive of the Electric Vehicles Council and an advocate for the Australian electric car industry, is a “fizzer”. It likewise lacks efforts to encourage uptake.
The opposition center-left Labor Party also campaigned in 2019 intending to have 50% of new cars be electrified by 2030.
