Electric dreams: EV manufacturers finally get serious about Australia

Australians haven’t had a wide choice of electric cars compared to Europe, the US and Asia. Indeed, the common complaint from people interested in EVs is that they would like to buy one, but can’t find any – at least that they can afford.

But that’s set to change this year and into next, with a whole new raft of models arriving promising extensive range, low running costs and at long last some priced around the $50,000 mark. Hardly mass-market, but getting there.

Nissan is about to unveil, for the first time in Australia, the latest version of its top selling Nissan Leaf.

Hyundai is getting ready to unveil three versions of its Ioniq brand, and put them on the market. Marketing is gearing up for the full battery model, as well as a plug in hybrid and a conventional hybrid.

Tesla is assumed to be less than a year away from the first deliveries its Model 3 electric vehicle, which will likely have the “base-cost” version available in Australia, so reasonably close to $50,000.

Meanwhile, at the top end of the market, Jaguar is starting deliveries of its highly-rated i-Pace in the December quarter, and Audi and others promise to make versions of their first EVs available in Australia too.

The roll-out of the various models may finally put some meat to the bone that is the EV market in Australia, a country that – thanks to the lack of any federal initiative, not even emissions standards – lags far behind any other market in the western world.

That, hopefully, will be about to change, with a Senate inquiry led by independent Tim Storer due to deliver its findings later this year that could hopefully become a competition of ideas leading up to the next federal election.

There is no doubt that the new model EVs – even at around $50,000, are still a long way short of where EVs need to be to challenge petrol and diesel vehicles on up-front cost – considered to be the key metric and pivot point for the mass uptake of zero emission cars.

After all, if the upfront cost is the same – and the “fuel” cost is 10 times cheaper, then why wouldn’t people adopt EVs as their next car.

Still, so many people declare that their next car will be an electric one. They are just waiting to see what’s available, what it costs, and what is its range.

To view the new EVs offered by Hyundai, Nissan, Tesla, Jaguar, and Audi, that you will soon be able to buy and drive, as complied by contributor Tony Bosworth, go to our new electric vehicle website, www.driven.io, and read on.

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