Page 28 - Australasian Paint & Panel magazine Nov-Dec 2021

Industry insights
28
PAINT&PANEL NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2021
EVS ARE FINALLY HERE
THEY MIGHT BE CREEPING UP STEALTHILY, ON OUR ROADS AND YOUR BUSINESS, WITH THEIR SNEAKY, SILENT-RUNNING WAYS, BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE, ELECTRIC VEHICLES ARE COMING. BY STEPHEN CORBY.
what’s going on elsewhere in the world. Countries in Europe, including the big ones like the UK, are going to make it il- legal to sell new cars with internal-com- bustion engines within a decade. Which means car companies are going to stop making them, which means they’re only
going to make electric vehicles.
Audi has already announced that it will launch its last-ever combustion-en- gine car in 2026, which is, if you don’t have a calendar handy, very soon indeed. To see where things are headed on a grand scale, it’s useful to look to Nor- way, where robust government incen- tives have seen EV sales go through the roof, with 14 out of 15 of Norway’s top- selling cars since the start of 2021 being fully electric. The EV uptake in Austral- ia has been far less noticeable thus far - think barely 1 per cent of sales - thanks to the federal government’s reluctance to offer similar incentives, but that hasn’t stemmed the flow of EVs into the local marketplace. The Australian Elec- tric Vehicle Council has forecast that we’ll have 58 EV models to choose from by the end of 2022, up from the 31 avail-
I
T MIGHT NOT FEEL LIKE IT
here in Australia, but speak to any car company executive and you’ll see that their hair is all thin- ning as they pull it out in frustration at our government’s snail-like reactions to
able in 2021, meaning the prevalence of EVs on Australian roads is only going to increase. And fast.
While EVs are yet to achieve price par- ity with combustion-engine vehicles, the cost of them is slowly but surely be- coming more consumer-friendly.
The cheapest model on the Australian market at present is the MG ZS EV, a me- dium-sized SUV with prices starting from $44,990 (the ZS Essence, which the ZS EV is based on, goes for almost half the price at $25,990).
Coming in behind the MG ZS EV is Hyundai’s increasingly popular IONIQ, with prices starting from $49,970, close- ly followed by the Nissan Leaf compact five-door hatchback - one of the world’s first mass-produced EVs - with an ask- ing price of $49,990.
The iconic Mini has also entered the EV race with the Mini Electric Hatch (priced from $55,650), and rounding out the cheapest EVs in Australia is the Hyundai Kona Electric, which goes for $54,500.
The EV you’re probably most aware of, the one with the high media profile and good looks, Tesla’s Model 3 - Australia’s best-selling EV - starts at $59,900.
Despite the range on offer - which stretches all the way to the $345,800 Porsche Taycan supercar, Australia’s most expensive EV - electric vehicles are yet to make a significant dent on the lo-
ABOVE: MGs are the cheapest EVs available in Australia.
cal market: 0.78 per cent of all cars sold here in 2020 were electric, compared to 10.7 per cent in the UK, and a whopping 74 per cent in Norway.
EVs are, however, clearly becoming a more popular option: 8688 EVs were sold during the first half of 2021 in Australia, which already tops the 6900 EVs sold dur- ing the entirety of 2020. And Hyundai claiming recently that EV sales are actually up 190 per cent so far in 2021, year on year.
A report conducted by Jaguar has pre- dicted that two-thirds of Australians will be driving EVs by 2028, and a recent poll run by website carsales.com.au re-