Australia’s 2023 EV market in review: The best value electrics – and what was Tesla thinking?

Well, another year has passed – and it is time to review the 2023 market that has been.

Last year I began this article with “We now have around thirty-three passenger cars and six light commercial vehicles … including a ute!” available to buy.

That list now extends to just over fifty passenger vehicles, fourteen light commercial vehicles … plus a growing number of medium to heavy electric trucks. On top of all this action, the list of officially announced passenger car arrivals for 2024/25 sits at around 30.

At the start of that article I made note of four markers of when I thought my job could be considered ‘done’. The first of those was “When ICE (internal combustion engine) cars are in the minority and EVs are everywhere.”

Whilst the other three are quietly progressing, that first is now moving faster than many expected – although if you study the typical technology adoption curve, it should have come as no surprise (Figures 1 and 2).

The leader in the transition, Norway, has now passed 93% PEV sales – 87% of which were full battery EVs (BEVs) and only 6% PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid EV). Game-over there.

Next door to Norway, European PEV sales are now one in four of all new cars sold. Even in Australia PEVs have been hitting 10% of all new car sales in the last few months.

So, my personal EV picks for 2023 are:

‘Bang for buck’

The Chinese have all but got that sewn up with the $40,000 price barrier being broken this year. As a result, the award pretty much goes to all five! There are, I think, two honourable mentions though.

The Cupra Born for the price and range is not too far off the pace for a car not made in China, plus the quiet achiever of the Kona electric still plods on as a competitor to the Chinese brands – especially as a second-hand one measures up well in specification and price to a new BYD, GWM or MG.

City cars 

Short range is not an issue for a city car, but a useful range to take you outside of the city bounds occasionally is nice, so I’ll set a driving range of 300 km plus. Small size and nimbleness is also a requirement, so 4 metres or less in length would be good, but if I set that there would only be one – the Fiat 500e at 3.6 metres.

Given there are few really small EVs on the market here yet, to create a bit of competition I’ll set the size as 4.3 metres or below instead. So what fits in? BYD Atto 3 is 4.45 metres, so it’s out. The Dolphin at 4.29 metres just fits, but the GWM Ora, despite its looks is surprisingly large at 4.325 metres. In fact the Cupra Born pips it at 4.322 metres!

So what are we left with?

Of those, if price is not your primary criterion – I’d pick the Fiat. For two people it provides a small, fun run-around that will take you places outside of the city limits. If you need seating for four (the Fiat is strictly for small people only in the back) then the Dolphin and the MG4 fight it out.

Interestingly, the current Kona made an appearance too as it squeaked in on the size criteria, although the new Kona coming soon grows around 150mm in length to become a mid-size SUV. On pricing too it deserves to be up there – second-hand versions would compete well for selection against the Dolphin and MG4.

Honourable mentions go to two others: the GWM Ora is a handy small-ish hatch, but it missed the cut on length. The Mini is small enough, but it’s range is a bit limiting.

Best value ‘long-rangers’:

Like last year, for long-rangers I will arbitrarily choose anything that approximately equals or exceeds my Kona. It does a good effort in very long drives (like Melbourne to Perth), if let down slightly by its slow (by current standards) AC and DC charging rates. So my criteria for selecting a good ‘long-ranger’ are:

• More than 450km WLTP driving range. (The Kona’s 2019 WLTP driving range was 449km);
• Extra DC charging kudos if more than 70kW (the DC charging speed of my Kona: most now are well past 100kW, with some reaching 300 kW DC);
• AC charging kudos if it offers 11kW or 22kW (my Kona is 7kW and when using a 32A three phase outlet, I begrudge the ‘wasted’ other two phase that could cut a 3 hr charge to 2 at 11kW, or down to 1hr at 22kW);
• Have a ‘reasonable’ luggage capacity. (My Kona loses out there. It has a limited luggage area when the seats are up: a legacy of being a platform shared with ICE versions, meaning lots of wasted space in the ‘engine’ bay up front that can’t be repurposed into passenger area).

Note: For this year I’ll reduce the price limit to $90,000. (Last year I set it at $100,000).

You will also note I have mixed the vehicle size and type categories somewhat as there is a mix of small and medium SUVs as well as passenger cars – but most are around the 4.3m to 4.7m range in length and most are SUV/crossover in style, so I would contend they are not as disparate as they first seem.

All-up, the winner is the buying public as there is plenty of choice in this category! Happily, with the improvements to the Polestar/Volvo EV platform, I can now add the Polestar 2 standard range and Volvo C40/XC40 which were not included last year.

So which takes the top score here from me this year?

Personally, I’d like to give it to the Volvo C40 rear-wheel drive version. Mainly because I wanted to give it to that model last year, but it missed out on driving range.

However they are all great cars and your choice will be different to mine. The Ford Mach-E is a very capable new entry for people looking for a family lugger that suits 5 big people (although it has no tow rating, which could put some potential buyers off).

The Ioniq 5 is definitely still the TARDIS of the group (bigger on the inside) and for budget buying, the MG4 mid-range blitzes the category and is probably the real winner.

Light commercial EV picks

Last year, the winner was any business that can find a light commercial EV that matches what they need. For this year, many more have arrived AND even more will come in 2024.

2024 is in fact is looking to be a bumper year for the category with the arrival of the Ford E-Transit Custom, LDV e-Deliver 7, plus belated arrival of the Renault Kangoo E-Tech and the possible arrival of the Victory light truck and van range plus (maybe) a couple of dual cab utes from LDV and JAC. The big arrival for 2024 though will be the VW ID.Buzz van.

For a winner: well it depends on what you need. The Ford E-Transit is an excellent electric van that ‘just works’. The coming smaller E-Transit Custom van is the talk-of-the-town when it comes to tradies interested in an electric work van.

The maybe-soon-to-arrive Renault Kangoo E-Tech looks a good package for those who want a smaller car-like van. However, it is running late (as usual for EV launches) and the Peugeot e-Partner is both here and an equally compelling contender for that use.

So I will leave the award to those who can find an electric light commercial vehicle that suits your needs – however there are a lot more of you this year than last.

And now (drum roll) to perhaps my favourite category: the ‘What WERE they thinking??? award.

What WERE they thinking?

Last year I awarded this prize jointly to the Lexus UX300e and the Mazda MX-30. I am happy to say that in 2023 Lexus addressed the biggest failing of the UX300e by putting a decent sized battery in it. Now with a 440km WLTP driving range – it is enough to be practical for most uses.

Mind-you they almost deserve a re-nomination for being one of the few manufacturers to still include the wildly over optimistic NEDC range figure in their advertising material as well as retain the zombie of the charging plug world – the CHAdeMO DC socket. (The newer Lexus RZ450e comes with the current CCS2 DC socket).

As for the Mazda – well, it definitely scores a re-nomination given the new car price has been raised by $10,000 to $74,500! However, the second-hand market has cast its vote and you can now buy an MX-30 for around $40k on the road.

At that price, it might perhaps score a second-glance from potential purchasers of one of the short-range Chinese models. My guess is the Mazda will slip gracefully into the pantheon of unloved second-hand cars that go so cheaply that they become a bit of a cult classic…

So to this year. My nominations for the 2023 ‘what WERE they thinking?’ award are:

1. The Renault E-Tech Megane. Offered everywhere else in the world with 22 kW AC charging as standard, or in a few markets as 7 kW standard and 22 kW as an option – in Australia, with its vast distances and plentiful availability of three phase power outlets in out-of-the way places, Renault have in their wisdom not offered 22 kW charging, or even 11 kW charging (as per almost all other EVs sold here). No, they decided 7 kW was good enough for Australia – with no other charger options possible.
2. Tesla Inc. For a company that began with lofty ideals to hasten the electrification of transport – it certainly has not done the mission any favours this year. So why am I nominating what used to be the EV industry poster-child?

1. In the interests of cheapness – Tesla has removed the indicator/lighting stalk from the Models 3 and Y. Instead, you need to chase the indicator control around as the steering wheel turns, adding yet another distraction to lengthen the time looking away from the road trying to find it.
2. The ‘structural’ battery pack is now rolling out. This one is both an economic AND environmental disaster. Whilst not truly ‘structural’ as it does bolt in, Tesla have complicated the vehicle repair industry by doing away with the floor-pan above the battery and bolting/sticking the interior directly to the battery top. This makes it both cheaper to assemble and saves material – but it also means the potential for skyrocketing insurance costs and/or unnecessary write-offs for seemingly minor dings to a battery pack, given you now have to take out all the interior simply to remove the battery.
3. Tesla still calling their autonomous driving assistance tech ‘autopilot’ (effectively implying the highest Level 5 in the 0 to 5 autonomy scale), when it barely makes it into Level 2 and some manufacturers are already beginning to release full Level 3 systems. Tesla still vigorously defends the system in all the court cases brought against it so far, but it will be interesting to see if it is Tesla, or someone else, that finally makes it to Level 4.

4. When it comes to Elon Musk’s Cybertruck vanity project (Elon Musk BTW is the CEO of Tesla), the question really should be asked as to whether this meets his stated goal of encouraging electric transport for the masses, or is in fact wasting ever more of the world’s resources by building a massively big and heavy car with a huge battery and expensive panel material, when all that R&D would have been better spent creating a ‘people’s car’?

So the winner for this year’s ‘what WERE they thinking award?’.

Well, given the E-Tech Megane is in all other ways an exceptional EV that offers a space efficient package and is more efficient than most (squeezing 450km WLTP out of a 60kWh battery), perhaps they can be forgiven for installing a cheaper charger which, for most buyers, won’t be noticed.

No, for this year one manufacturer stands head and shoulders above the others for producing less desirable, less user-friendly, less environmentally friendly EVs … and on top of all, introducing a car that the world really didn’t need. That company? Tesla Inc. of course. All-up, I think Tesla is a deserving winner of the ‘what WERE they thinking?’ award for 2023.

Notes to tables:

1. Different ranges for the different size batteries. Same for prices (see also note d).
2. V2L: Vehicle to Load. V2G: Vehicle to grid.
3. Maximum recharging rates. Note that AC rates over 7.4 kW require three phase power. DC rates are for charging rates up to around 80% of full charge. DC charging rates reduce significantly after 80%.
4. Prices on the road in Victoria unless otherwise stated.
5. ETA: Q=quarter. Q1=Jan-Mar; Q2=Apr-Jun; Q3=July-Sept; Q4=Oct-Dec. H1=Jan-Jun; H2=Jul-Dec.