“Hysterical” Liberal anti-EV campaign backfires, inspires buyers to go electric

A “bizarre” and “hysterical” Liberal campaign attacking the ACT decision to encourage electric car uptake has likely backfired, and convinced at least one Canberra resident to do the exact opposite and buy an electric car.

The extraordinary campaign launched in May 2021 saw Liberal senator and minister for international development Zed Seselja author a letter-box campaign which framed electric car drivers as footloose and fancy-free males, while women with young children were left driving polluting SUVs.

At the time, Seselja made a number of misleading claims on Facebook including saying that the “average” price of EVs is $107,950 and well out of reach of most Canberra families, attracting numerous comments on his post pointing out this was in fact not true.

In fact, the most-popular electric car in Australia, the Tesla Model 3, starts at just under $60,000, while the cheapest EV at the moment, the MG ZS EV – which is second on the EV sales ladder – is $44,900 driveaway. Out of around 30 models available in Australia, around half are priced from under $70,000.

The post so incensed one Canberra driver that he decided to buy an electric car – something that was brought to The Driven’s attention when he replied to ACT minister for climate change and sustainability’s post in late January congratulating the state for reaching the highest EV market share in Australia (his post states 5.87%, but it was in fact 5.01% after Tesla corrected figures supplied to the EVC).

“Yep, it’s because of Zed and the Libs bizarre hysterical anti-EV rant that informed me about the great incentives on offer,” said Ian McLeod. “Thanks Zed (idiot) now I drive a Tesla!”

McLeod went on to say: “Since Zed went on this rant I’m seeing more and more EVs every day in Canberra, they’re everywhere!”

McLeod told the Driven that he has got his Tesla Model 3 Long Range in October, 2021, and he has also installed a Zappi charger and collected “reams of data around the cost and economics side.”

For example, he says because he is now not spending approximately $200 a month on fuel, so instead of company going to fossil fuel companies owned by overseas interests, he is now spending that money in rural communities, because it costs so little to go for a daytrip for lunch.

“It costs like $2 to go there for a pie,” McLeod says. “We import $40 billion a year in foreign fuel, (and) if we could reduce that by even a third by going EV that’s billions of dollars staying on shore going inland instead rather than to Middle East oil oligarchs.”

And he says the driving experience is far better also. “The experience is fantastic by the way, especially AWD regenerative braking.”

“It’s vastly superior to ICE (internal combustion engine vehicle) braking, especially on windy downhill roads. Just overall vastly superior responsiveness and control, EVs are superior to combustion in every way,” he says.