The lifespan of the internal combustion engine just got shorter. Last week, the UK announced a ban on selling fossil-fuelled cars from 2030. Across the Channel, green vehicles have been built into coronavirus recovery packages and the only car ads on TV are for hybrids or fully-electric vehicles. Even Uber is adapting; all ridesharing in European cities will be exclusively via electric vehicles within the decade.

As Europe changes gear, Australia remains utterly stalled. We have no mandatory fuel efficiency or greenhouse gas standards for the cars we drive. Almost all other G20 members do, even oil-rich Saudi Arabia. According to one study, the lack of binding fuel economy standards has cost Australian motorists $1 billion in the last three years.

The argument for such an effective policy – that would help save money and the climate – has been made many times before. What has changed is the escalation in global ambition in the last 12 months alone. Seismic shifts in auto manufacturing are threatening to turn Australia’s complacency into a strategic mistake.

If national subsidies have been the EV carrot to date, then it is the EU’s stick that is now turbocharging a revolution. By the end of this year, the EU will fine any auto manufacturers whose average CO2 emissions from vehicles sold in Europe exceed 95 g/km. For perspective, that is roughly half the carbon intensity of Australia’s vehicle fleet. Nevertheless, auto manufacturers are largely on track to meet the new threshold, belatedly pouring €60 million into low-emission technologies, 19 times more investment than last year.

The EU regulations apply to the aggregate intensity of a manufacturer’s total sales. So, while Toyota/Mazda have opted to laboriously chip away at their emissions by hybridising their existing fleet, others have found that selling cars with no emissions at all sufficiently offsets their other models. The all-electric Renault Zoe, for example, will almost singlehandedly achieve the Renault Group’s 2020 compliance. Similarly, Volkswagen will launch its last combustion engine model in 2026.

And consumers are responding. In France, electrified vehicle sales for the month of March quadrupled year-on-year while in Norway (where stricter standards and big subsidies were introduced earlier), EVs reportedly reached 80 percent of September sales. One study suggests that by year’s end, ten percent of new car sales in Europe will be electrified vehicles. Not even coronavirus can stop EVs going mainstream. McKinsey estimates that market penetration has grown despite a drop in overall vehicle sales and is forecasting strong EV growth in both Europe and China.

And here the rubber hits the road. There is an investment stampede towards electric vehicles that has nothing to do with the environment. The world’s manufacturing giants know that whoever wins the electric car race will win the industry’s future. The ultimate humiliation for Europe would be mass imports of Chinese EVs that directly undercut their home-grown carmakers; the EU now openly labels China a “systemic rival”.

For years, China’s strong government incentives have made it the world’s largest EV market with 3.5 million such cars expected on Chinese roads by 2022. China has successfully attracted the lion’s share of green automotive investment – until now. The advent of the EU’s 2020 standards saw 3.5 times more EV investment in Europe than in China. Even Tesla is opening an EV giga-plant just outside Berlin next year. The European Commission is now mulling tougher emissions standards from 2025.

EVs are also sweeping through Japan’s auto sector while strict Californian targets are dragging up US standards by default. Suddenly all the major players have an interest in selling not just more EVs, but fewer fossil-fuelled vehicles, with the latter inevitably dumped onto the only markets too short-sighted to restrict them.

Enter Australia – one of the most car-dependent countries on earth. While the rest of the world offloads their outdated fleets, Australia remains utterly exposed, with no defence against the coming flood of washed up vehicles that will lock us into third-rate technology for decades.

Read more:

https://johnmenadue.com/cameron-rimington-the-escalating-risk-to-australias-vehicle-fleet-australia-applies-the-brakes-again-and-again/

Picture at top by Gus Leonisky: Hydro Majestic Charging Station, Blue Mountains.