VW wants Australians to be “liberated” from traditional fossil fuel filling stations

Volkswagen Australia has put pressure on the government – yet again – to bring Australia up to speed with the global transition to electric mobility, calling for carbon emissions restrictions on vehicles and building standards requiring readiness for EV chargers.

Speaking at the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Transform 22 summit held in Sydney this week,

Volkswagen Australia’s managing director Paul Sansom called on both Australia’s building industry and the Federal Government to “liberate Australians from traditional filling stations with home EV charging” and called for binding federally imposed CO2 emissions standards.

It has been almost 12 months to the day since the German carmaker dubbed Australia an “automotive third world” when it comes to cleaning up transport – a massive call coming from the company that itself was fined millions for its role in the Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal of 2015.

Volkswagen, however, is now a leader in plug-in electric vehicle sales in Europe.

And while EVs from its subsidiary brands Cupra and Skoda have now been confirmed for Australia, and the Audi e-tron and Porsche Taycan are now available in a variety of incarnations, Volkswagen has made clear that a local launch of its ID electric vehicle range has been delayed due to the lack of federal vehicle emissions standards.

(However, Sansom’s address hinted at an announcement soon – stay tuned).

Sansom told the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Transform 22 summit held in Sydney this week, about the “peculiarly Australian barriers to mass uptake” of electric vehicles.

He said it was crucial that EV charging infrastructure was available in buildings, including at homes, offices and apartment buildings. In the UK for example, Tory leader Boris Johnson in 2021 introduced an EV strategy that included measures to mandate that new homes and large-scale renovations would be made “EV-ready.”

But there are no such regulations in Australia. A proposal by Labor in the run-up to the 2019 federal election touted similar measures but were, in an extremely cynical scare campaign, roundly and misleadingly branded a “housing tax” by energy minister Angus Taylor.

Sansom has now renewed the calls for reform in the building industry to ensure not only Australia’s vehicles, but its homes, are not left behind on the global stage. Importantly, a federal building policy that all states could adopt should be on the table, he says.

Without such rules, residential buildings are at risk of becoming depreciating, rather than appreciating assets.

“The greatest misconception around EVs in this country remains so-called ‘range anxiety’,” Sansom said at the GBCA conference on Wednesday. “The opportunity – the necessity – exists to transform this perception to a reality of convenience and enablement.

“By far the greater part of the time EVs will charge at work or home, meaning that we are for the first time being liberated from the necessity of traditional ‘filling’ stations. The creators of our built environment will provide accessible and efficient home charging. This will be the greatest enabler of zero emission vehicle ownership.

“Neither new houses nor new apartment buildings will be feasible without easy access to renewable EV charging; no more so than a home without internet access,” he said. “There can be no doubt that the lack of such facility will negatively affect the value of property.”

Of particular importance to Sansom was his company’s Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology that he described as a “game changer with respect to accelerating EV uptake in Australia and reducing the national carbon footprint.”

“Our cars will become your own personal renewable energy eco system by using the cars battery to store solar power for domestic use in your homes. The MEB platform, on which Volkswagen Group EVs are built, feature this technology.”