List of shame: Polestar and Tesla top clean car ratings, Isuzu and Toyota fair worst

Australia’s Climate Council has put together a “list of shame” that ranks Australia’s cleanest to dirtiest car brands and reveals just hows how much the government needs to push to tighten up standards and to help lower the cost of electric cars in Australia.

Polestar and Telsa are the cleanest car manufacturers available in Australia, selling only battery-powered EVs here. At the bottom is Isuzu with no target for selling any EVs in Australia and Toyota, which has a goal of 33 per cent of its available vehicles for sale being electric.

“At the moment, the cheapest EV available in Europe costs just $18,000 AUD, compared with almost $50,000 AUD for the cheapest one here at home. With more manufacturers transitioning their fleets and the right policies in place, we can get more Aussies behind the wheel of cheaper, cleaner new cars,” the Climate Council’s ‘Race to Zero’ analysis suggests.

New standards needed across the board

Any new standards need to be specific about what they are for and for which vehicles, because not all EVs are the same, notes the Climate Council’s submission.

Full electric is different to plug in hybrids (a plug-in powered battery vehicle that also uses petrol), which are different to hybrids (a petrol-only vehicle). The Climate Council is advocating for only pure EVs to be included in the government’s policies in future.

“In short, fuel efficiency standards incentivise vehicle makers to supply low and zero emissions vehicles by penalising them financially if they fail to do so,” the report says.

“The agreed allowable CO2 limit (fuel efficiency standard) can be progressively reduced over time, requiring vehicle manufacturers to produce increasingly efficient vehicles and/or grow the share of zero emission vehicles they produce.

“In international markets where fuel efficiency standards have already been implemented, this has had the effect of dramatically increasing the supply of EVs while driving down their price.”

But fuel efficiency standards must also be designed well. They need to be at least as high as those in the EU and US and leave little wiggle room or loopholes which risk Australia continuing to be a dumping ground for high emissions vehicles unsellable in other markets.

The second hand market is key to creating an explosion of electric vehicles in Australia, but it’s up to the government and big corporations to start it.

Climate Councillor Greg Bourne says there should be no exemptions for passenger vehicles and particularly utes. He says rather than advocate against loopholes however, they are pushing for decent carbon dioxide emissions standards and working on knocking out sulphurous fuels from the transport ecosystem as fast as possible.

The Climate Council is also pushing for a phase out of fuel tax credits, estimated to cost the federal government more than $7 billion in 2022-23 alone.

It also wants the government to begin looking at ways to decarbonise the broader transport industry, from supporting zero-emission buses to offering transition pathways for parts of the sector where electrification is not appropriate such as aviation, shipping, heavy rail and long distance trucking.

Bourne also says the the development of a vibrant second hand market is important, and government fleet purchases have been a good way to kickstart markets for second-hand vehicles, as the ensuing mass sell-off later helps to bring down prices.

“Tesla set the high bar which is fine, but others have to come in at lower levels. In the end the key thing is we see a group of companies that are absolutely driving for EV ascendancy,” he told RenewEconomy.

“Typically in any space you end up with the top end companies and then you end up with some cheap and nasties at the bottom, but not much in the middle, and then that middle bit fills in. The middle is what we need to get.”

Consumer fears remain

What the submission didn’t cover was the more nebulous consumer fear about batteries: both where and how the materials are sourced and the cost of replacing a lithium-based battery when buying a used EV.

The battery lifespan issue can be solved by recycling and rentals, says Greg McGarvie, managing director at ACE-Electric Vehicles and president of Electric Mobility Manufacturers of Australia.

He says lithium-ion batteries for EVs come with a 10 year or 160,000km warranty, valid even for later owners, but new electric car owners need to change their thinking about batteries from ownership to renting and get used to the idea of swapping out the battery — trading it in — when it nears the end of its useful life.

For those genuinely concerned about the way lithium-ion battery parts are sourced, consumers will need to consider the provenance of their cars, says Bourne, just as they might with their coffee beans or chocolate.

“The provenance of the car will be key. Tesla is deliberately buying metals from Australia because it knows their provenance,” he told RenewEconomy.

German research suggests that even including battery manufacture, pure EVs still produce much lower lifetime emissions than fossil fuel and hybrid vehicles.