FFS: Coalition EV policy fizzles out with no grand plan, and no emissions limits

The Morrison government has finally released a policy that it says is geared towards encouraging a transition to clean, zero-emissions, electric vehicles, but it insists it wants the transition to happen without any financial incentives to drivers or vehicle emissions limits for carmakers.

Almost 32 months after delivering a one page strategy to deliver a strategy, and 18 months later than originally promised for mid-2020, the “Future Fuels Strategy” (yes, FFS) has been slammed by stakeholders and carmakers alike as badly lacking at best, and a fizzer at worst, with no substance other than throwing dollars at more charging rollouts.

With fluffy promises to reduce carbon emissions by over 8 Mt CO2-e by 2035, the FFS takes the Coalition’s favourite  “technology not taxes” approach that has become minister for energy and emissions reduction Angus Taylor’s signature catchphrase.

The good news is that it will undertake to inject $250 million into charging infrastructure, with an expectation of equal investment from private enterprise, that will include 1,000 new public charging stations giving 84% of the Australian population “convenient access” to fast charging.

It will also include AC charging stations for just 400 (yes, just 400!) businesses, along with smart chargers for 50,000 households. Who these will go to and under what criteria are unknown at this stage.

This is enough, it seems the federal government thinks, to “create the environment for there to be 1.7 million electric vehicles on the road by 2030.”

This is despite noting in its own document that feedback from industry and stakeholders “highlighted the high upfront costs of low and zero-emission vehicles and the need to address regulatory and market barriers to increase their uptake.”

To break it down very simply, this means price and choice.

However, the document does not address the two main measures undertaken with success in overseas markets to actually address these points – financial incentives for drivers and vehicle emissions limits to encourage the introduction of more and cheaper electric vehicles on the local auto market.

Less than 9,000 new electric vehicles were registered in Australia in the first half of 2021. There are around 30,000 on the road currently. To reach 1.7 million vehicles on the road by 2030 will mean at least 210,000 new EVs need to be sold in Australia on average every year until the end of the decade.

Richie Merzian, climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute, slammed the federal government’s FFS as counterproductive, saying it is a “handbrake on choice for consumers” and underlines Morrison’s failure to step up action during the COP26 summit.

“The Prime Minister states his strategy is about offering choice of vehicles when in fact it does the opposite,” said Merzian in a statement.

“Australia Institute’s submission on the earlier Future Fuels Discussion Paper notes a lack of credible transport policies including CO2 emission standards, electric vehicle incentives and fleet targets have been a handbrake on choice, robbing everyday Australian’s of the affordable electric vehicles which the United Kingdom and Norway enjoy.

“On Wednesday in Glasgow, the UK is preparing to announce the commitment to end the sale of new polluting cars by 2035 for wealthy countries and 2040 for developing countries. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Morrison, back home, has returned to the same damaging rhetoric around not ‘forcing’ Australians to save money and emissions by opting for electric vehicles,” he said.

“There’s no sugar coating it, Future Fuels is a fizzer,” said Behyad Jafari, CEO of the Electric Vehicle Council that represents more than 80 stakeholders, in a note by email.

“If it contained fuel efficiency standards and rebates it would give Australians more choice. The best and most affordable EVs manufacturers are producing would make their way swiftly onto our market.

“Fuel efficiency standards are the absolute bare minimum of what you would expect in any 21st century plan,” he said.

Volkswagen Australia, which has been vocal in its calls for a national strategy, lamented again the “patchwork of disparate regulations” on EVs in Australia that has seen states adopt varying approaches with little cohesive federal direction.

In particular, VW Australia CEO Michael Bartsch said via a spokesperson to The Driven that, “Until Euro 6 emissions regulations are mandated in Australia, certain importers can continue to dump engines here that they cannot sell in other markets.

“The same cars that Volkswagen’s rivals sell to Australians with old Euro 5 technology, they sell in developed markets with cleaner, more efficient Euro 6 engines.” We note that VW’s Amarok, made in Argentina, is one such vehicle.

No targets, just a smidge of copy and paste

The thin strategy from the Morrison government is particularly so when held up against the proposal put forward by Shorten’s Labor in the lead to the 2019 election, which called for 50% electric vehicle sales by 2030 – which would equate around 500,000 a year (and as uptake increases each year is also where the current FFS will head).

Shorten – who recently adopted an EV as his parliamentary car – says that the FFS is a copy and paste job of Labor’s policy. Except it doesn’t have the substance of incentives and emissions legislation.

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery in politics,” Shorten said on Tuesday to morning TV news viewers. “Mr Morrison must read my policy book at night-time for ideas.”

At the time, Shorten’s policy proposal also called for new buildings to be EV-ready, meaning that they be wired up in a way to avoid expensive retrofits for EV chargers.

This was falsely cast by Taylor in 2019 as a “housing tax”. The new FFS notes that “The Australian Building Codes Board is considering how to ensure readiness for future installation of electric vehicle charging in the next update of the National Construction Code, scheduled for 2022.”

Held up against overseas policies there is barely even a copy and paste job, with outright bans of new petrol and diesel vehicle sales targeted by jurisdictions including Norway by 2025, Denmark and the UK by 2030, California and the EU by 2035, and a number of others.

Solar Citizens’ national director Ellen Roberts agrees the LNP plan simply won’t deliver the growth in electric vehicles needed to stop Australia’s growing transport emissions in its tracks.

“The Government’s policies are forcing Australians to pay more for the small range of electric vehicle models available here,” Roberts said in a note by email.

“The Morrison government has been missing in action on electric vehicles, putting Australia behind the rest of the world and Australian car buyers at a global disadvantage. In the absence of federal action we’ve seen the states step up, but only the federal government can impose fuel efficiency standards, which is the key clean transport policy.

“Without fuel efficiency standards, car manufacturers will continue to dump cheap petrol cars in Australia and sell their EVs in countries with the right policy settings,” she said.

Even the FCAI, which traditionally takes an “agnostic” stance on drivetrains, but which in 2020 moved to place voluntary emissions limits on the auto industry, lamented the lack of a commitment by the federal government to legislate vehicle emissions.

“The availability of EVs in Australia is increasing as car manufacturers respond to growing demand, however the reality is that they still account for less than one percent of total vehicle sales year to date,” said FCAI chief Tony Weber.

“This means that the Government’s target for EVs to be 30% of new vehicle sales by 2030 is extremely optimistic.

“We strongly urge the Government to adopt the FCAI’s existing voluntary emissions standard which sets a clear pathway towards lower CO2 emissions across the entire passenger and light commercial fleet through to 2030,” he said.