Big incentives to buy electric cars may be needed to boost adoption in Australia. Despite the impressive growth in EVs, they come from a very low base, and in fact, the growth of Australian EV fleets is less than the growth of diesel fleets. The country added 290,000 new Diesels last year, as shown in the following table. The barely visible blue bar on the right is the electric car.
There is no doubt that these buyers are very unhappy with the difference in fuel prices recently, where diesel has gone up to 40 cents per liter more than petrol.
EV financing is working to increase adoption. The only problem with EV subsidies is this: you don’t reduce global emissions if increasing subsidies just diverts cars from other markets to Australia. While the global EV market is still supply-driven rather than demand-driven, reducing Australian transport emissions comes at the expense of other countries’ emissions. Norway may have 90 percent EV sales but not every country can match them — there just aren’t enough builds.
We need more EVs to build. The market responds as quickly as possible. But cobalt and lithium are not enough. Are there enough materials in the world to make the batteries we need with today’s battery technology and battery sizes?
Some observers say no.
Global production of nickel and lithium will be enough for 3.8m EVs this year – less than half of the 7.7m that carmakers say they want to make. By 2030, metal will be enough for 15.6m EVs. But it is said that EV production is more than 40m. 1/2 The Electric. https://t.co/MuwDEra1c0
— Steve LeVine (@stevelevine) April 24, 2022
However, the market has the ability to solve such problems. Battery recycling and smaller vehicles may be part of the answer. And sure enough, battery power has seen a surprising increase in smaller vehicles: very few food delivery workers drive without assistance these days. Sometimes the confusion comes from under the nose.
Battery power is the perfect solution for scooters and bicycles, and can help replace some of the trips that would otherwise be run on gasoline. If a student can stop buying a car for a few years by getting an e-scooter, a family can limit itself to one car by buying an e-bike, or a company can moving things through e-bikes, has the potential to reduce traffic, emissions and dependence on cars.
E-scooters and e-bikes are a blind spot for most Australians, but as petrol and battery prices continue to rise, fully electric vehicles are out of reach, they could be suddenly smaller electric cars and the current definition of electric cars — cars, but with electric motors — may disappear.
