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AUTOMOTIVE & ROAD TRANSPORT
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CHARGE AUSTRALIA AND THE EV REVOLUTION
The global automotive market is undergoing a radical transformation, with electric vehicles rapidly gaining market share – but Australia is in danger of falling behind. Nonetheless, a small group of Australian manufacturers are bucking the trend and taking on the world. By William Poole. Around the world, a mobility revolution is gaining speed. Just as the early 20th century saw the automobile replace the horse-drawn carriage, we are now witnessing a similar change as the internal combustion engine makes way for the electric vehicle (EV). A decade ago, the number of electric cars on the road was negligible – around 20,000 worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). By 2019, worldwide sales had soared to 2.1m, bringing the global stock to 7.2m vehicles. EVs made up 2.6% of global car sales and about 1% of global stocks – a 40% year-onyear increase. Early figures for this year are pointing to even bigger gains. Australia, however, is stuck in the slow lane. In 2019, EVs made up to 0.6% of new vehicles sold here, putting us well behind almost all other developed nations. The market in Australia is growing, but we are lagging. “There’s a chasm there, but it’s a surmountable one,” says Behyad Jafari, CEO of the Electric Vehicle Council of Australia (EVC). “In most of the developed world the market share for EVs usually sits around 5% to 10%. We reached 6,700 EV sales in 2019, whereas if we were up to par with the global average, we would have sold about 50,000. So for us it’s: how do we get to 5%? And then from there we work out how we solve every other problem and work our way up towards 100%.”
AMT DEC/JAN 2021
The EVC is an industry body that represents the EV sector in Australia. Established in 2016, today it has around 60 members, including automotive manufacturers; electricity generation, distribution and retail companies; and businesses involved in developing charging infrastructure and other innovative technologies. While much of the EVC’s work entails representing the array of businesses with an interest in the sector, a big part is also highlighting e-mobility’s enormous potential for Australia. “We look at that value chain in this global shift towards EVs,” Jafari explains. “What opportunities does it present for our country? How can we develop that industry? We’ve got some of the world’s richest mineral resources for developing batteries – how do we capitalise on that, and go down the value chain towards battery production, vehicle production, and associated infrastructure?” The EVC’s activities cover three broad categories. The first is policy development and advocacy, working with governments to develop policies that support the EV industry. Second is market facilitation, growing the market for the EVs, particularly through corporate and government fleets. Finally a third category is industry co-ordination. EVs are a ‘convergence technology’, drawing in sectors with little engagement previously with the automotive industry: battery manufacturers, infrastructure providers, electricity companies, and so on. The EVC seeks to bring these groups together to solve problems, develop products, and formulate industry standards.
