CEFC gives $20.5 million to help drive down cost of electric car loans

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has allocated $20.5 million to support what it says will be $100 million of green car loans and  a new opportunity to lower the cost of electric vehicles for Australian customers – if they can find a car to buy,.

Eligible borrowers will receive discounted interest rates on loans for both battery electric and plug in hybrid cars, at least compared with the rate for internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

Australia lags behind many other comparable nations in EV uptake, despite most Australians saying they want their next new car purchase to be electric.

The queues and long wait times for EVs is blamed on the previous Federal Government and its lack of support for the sector and its demonisation of the technology. The new Labor Government has hinted at changes to come, and a National Electric Vehicle Strategy is in development, thought has yet to gain traction.

In 2021, the Arcadis Global Electric Vehicle Catalyst Index ranked Australia last or near-last out of 12 countries on all criteria, and Australia was the only market assessed as performing poorly across all categories, including EV availability and charging infrastructure.

Australian consumers are increasingly looking to electric vehicles when they consider their next car, but are hampered by the problem of availability. The Arcadis Index found that Australia had just 30 EV models available, compared with 154 in Hong Kong and 100 in Norway.

“Australia faces a significant challenge to decarbonise its economy,” said CEFC head of debt markets Richard Lovell. “The transport sector is the third largest source of national greenhouse gas emissions and our efforts to get to net zero emissions by 2050 must include a focus on the way we travel.

“As more Australians consider buying an EV to cut their carbon footprint, more affordable finance will provide a powerful incentive to convince them to commit,” said Lovell. 

The discounted green car loan offered by Taurus will extend to all battery electric vehicles and high-performance plug-in hybrid vehicles under $90,000.

“At least half of all car buyers in Australia finance the purchase with a car loan,” said Lovell. “Working with Taurus to establish a new green car loan has the potential to improve EV availability because it offers Original Equipment Manufacturers the certainty that potential customers can access finance to buy their cars.”

Taurus founders and co-CEOs David Giffin and Satyajit Pal said: “We’re delighted to receive this support from CEFC which will support the work we are doing with EV Direct to acceleratethe transition of Australian consumers to a cleaner and greener future.”