Technology entrepreneur and investor Simon Hackett has become the latest high profile Australian businessman to hit out at the federal Coalition’s anti-electric vehicle campaign, describing claims that EVs can’t tow a tinnie as “bullshit.”
Hackett – who says he is not “pro” any particular party in the upcoming federal election, but is “just extremely, extremely ‘anti bullshit’” – on Tuesday Tweeted an image of his electric car (a Tesla Model X) towing his electric aircraft (as you do).
Here is our electric car towing our electric aircraft – today. Yes, really. Don’t let @ScottMorrisonMP tell you EV’s can’t tow things – that’s bulls**t. Don’t tell him about this tweet, either, or he’ll probably claim electric aircraft don’t exist. Or that black is white. pic.twitter.com/xbaRGMl4zg
— Simon Hackett (@simonhackett) April 16, 2019
“Here is our electric car towing our electric aircraft – today. Yes, really. Don’t let @ScottMorrisonMP tell you EV’s can’t tow things – that’s bulls**t. Don’t tell him about this tweet, either, or he’ll probably claim electric aircraft don’t exist. Or that black is white,” the Tweet says.
The comments follow up on an earlier angry outburst from Hackett, in a thread under a Tweet from Labor senator Kristina Kenneally on Friday, showing a video of a Tesla Model X towing a Qantas airplane.
If is truly disappointing to see any political leader uttering un-researched, uneducated bullshit just to try to create a contrived policy differential. Seriously disappointing. Have these people not heard of using Google? The internet is on computers now. https://t.co/6udnixhUfg
— Simon Hackett (@simonhackett) April 13, 2019
“It is truly disappointing to see any political leader uttering un-researched, uneducated bullshit just to try to create a contrived policy differential. Seriously disappointing. Have these people not heard of using Google? The internet is on computers now,” Hackett said.
The pictures and videos of electric vehicles towing things currently proliferating on social media come in response to Coalition claims that electric vehicles don’t have the “grunt” of their petrol and diesel counterparts, to tow such things as caravans, small boats, or even trailers.
“People have decided they actually want to buy a car that can tow a boat, or their tinny, or a caravan or a trailer, or whatever they want,” Scott Morrison said last week on one of his campaign trail stops.
This claim is part of a broader Conservative effort to discredit electric vehicles – and in doing so discredit the Labor Party’s target for EVs at 50 per cent of new cars sold by 2030.
Earlier claims from Coalition members including energy minister Angus Taylor include that electric vehicles take hours to recharge (they don’t have to), there isn’t the technology to fast-charge them (there is, and it’s Australian), and that you would be better off walking to Dubbo than trying to drive an electric car there from Sydney.
And Hackett is not the only high profile person to jump to the defence of both electric vehicles, and the importance of ‘facts’ in political debate.
As we have reported, the billionaire founder of Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes, has also disparaged claims that target is “extreme,” saying it could be easily met.
And even the working-class man himself, Jimmy Barnes, has come to the defence of EVs, Tweeting his own picture of his own Model X being recharged by his own rooftop solar panels.
Meanwhile, surveys suggest that half of all Australian voters – from all political persuasions – would support a policy push to 100 per cent electric vehicles by 2025.
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.