Australia’s peak body representing fossil fuel powered vehicles, the FCAI (Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries), will meet Tuesday to decide if it will launch a campaign to scare Australians about the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NEVS) which the government recently announced.
It should be an interesting meeting. Some car makers, notably the Japanese ones and particularly Mazda, threaten to do anything to stop the new standard. But not everyone is on board and are privately appalled by the actions and wild claims of their CEO in recent days.
On Friday, Herald Sun national political editor James Campbell wrote that the fossil car industry is threatening to run a public fear campaign “similar to that waged by the mining industry against the Rudd government’s mining tax”.
The six week anti-mining tax campaign in 2010 cost just $22 million and is credited with helping bring down then Prime Minister Rudd and denying the Australian public tens of billions in resource export revenue. Buoyed by that success, they are looking to try for a repeat with what they are dubbing “the tax on utes”.
Mainstream media parroting fossil car misinformation
On Friday the Australian Financial Review’s Senior Correspondent Jacob Greber reported the FCAI’s claim that the government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard would cost “the entire car-buying public” $38 billion in the first five years. “Labor’s new EV-boosting rules will cost $38b, auto group says,” reads the AFR headline.
In contrast with the headline, the detail in the paywalled article points out the FCAI’s alarmist figure is based on 2023 vehicle models, no behavioural change, and doesn’t even factor in credits for vehicles sold below targets (for which methods are clearly outlined in the government’s impact analysis).
Furthermore, the “cost” referred to by the FCAI is actually the cost of potential fines to the carmakers themselves, not the consumer, and makes the assumption that carmakers will simply pass on these penalty costs to their customers. A task that will become more and more difficult as more affordable EVs come to the Australian market and ICE vehicles struggle to compete on price.
Greber followed his article with an appearance on the ABC Insiders program on Sunday, echoing some fossil car talking points: “The question is around the speed of this thing, how fast it ratchets up,” he said. “We’re a unique kind of market, we travel big distances, we’ve got terrible roads, we have large families.”
But the idea of Australia being a “unique” market isn’t reflected in the numbers. Norway, which in January had average new passenger vehicle emissions of just 9 grams of CO2/km (a whopping 18 times lower than emissions from passenger vehicles sold in Australia), has an annual driving average of 12,480km.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says passenger vehicles in Australia drive just 11,100 km per year, meaning EV loving Norwegians actually drive 11% more than Australians.
FCAI contradicts its own figures
The FCAI’s dodgy numbers were also called out on Saturday by Mike Foley and Olivia Ireland in their article in The Sydney Morning Herald who noted that the FCAI’s own submission to the government’s vehicle efficiency policy contradicts its $38 billion cost claim.
“Within five years, 25 per cent of vehicles would be electric vehicles, FCAI’s submission said. Their paper anticipated that by the end of this decade, petrol and diesel car sales would plummet to 18 per cent of the market, while clean cars, including fully electric and hybrid vehicles, would rise to 82 per cent.” says the The Sydney Morning Herald article.
“It’s up to FCAI to explain the clear contradiction in their two positions,” minister for climate change and energy Chris Bowen responded.
“It’s disappointing that the car lobby has joined with Dutton to avoid bringing fuel-saving choices to Australians that they supply in 85 per cent of the global new car market and keeping ripping Australians off with less efficient vehicles.” said Bowen.
On Saturday Minister Bowen was at Australia’s largest electric vehicle trade show Everything Electric (formally Fully Charged) and spoke about the importance of the new standard.
“We will no longer be alongside Russia as the only major country without vehicle efficiency standards.” said Minister Bowen, drawing rousing applause from the audience.
Dutton has wires crossed on vehicle policy
The FCAI’s nonsensical “analysis” comes as Peter Dutton showed he’s also way out of his depth on transport policy detail. On Friday the opposition leader visited a Mazda dealership and held a press conference where he confused the vehicle efficiency standard with a “new car and ute tax”.
“We’ve got a prime minister who is so far out of touch he’s now proposing a new ute tax to drive up the price of your HiLux or Ranger or D-Max or BT-50, and I think people are not going to reward that,” said Dutton.
But the truth is that Australian vehicles use on average 20% more fuel on average than US vehicles meaning the NVES will indeed drive fuel costs down for Australians. Dutton appears to be confusing the vehicle efficiency standard with a New Zealand’s Clean Car Discount which provides rebates for clean cars and penalty “feebates” for higher polluting cars. The NZ clean car discount applies directly to consumers while the NVES applies only to car manufacturers themselves, a critical point of difference missed by Peter Dutton.
“Battle lines are drawn” turmoil at FCAI as members split on NVES
Industry insiders say that some FCAI members are furious with the CEO’s recent comments regarding the NEVS. Hyundai, which already produces a range of electric vehicles is rumoured to be very disappointed about the FCAI’s attacks on the NVES.
Battle lines for Tuesday’s meeting appear to be drawn with Volkswagen confirming they’re in favour of strong standards.
“Volkswagen Group Australia has been among the voices calling for a strong, binding efficiency standard, in line with the Volkswagen Group’s global stance. Australia will be a better place for its auto market no longer being an international outlier.” said Volkswagen Group general manager of corporate communications Paul Pottinger.
Peter Dutton’s visit to a Mazda dealership is perhaps no accident. The Japanese car maker possibly has the most to lose from the new standards, mostly because it has nothing to offer the public in low emissions vehicles. Its first and only EV in the Australian market was a failure – expensive and with ridiculously low range – and is being pulled from the market.
Industry insiders say Mazda is leading the push-back against the new standard, cheered on by the likes of Toyota and other Japanese car makers, although Toyota at least has some fall-back from the popularity of its hybrid cars.
Tesla, of course, is a strong supporter of the NVES but it is also understood Hyundai is unhappy and uncomfortable about the FCAI position. Insiders suggested some fireworks at the FCAI meeting on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Smart Energy Council is promising to fight the legacy car lobby. It called its own emergency summit on Monday, vowing to match the FCAI’s campaign with a pro-NVES campaign and “raise it 25 million Australians.”
“We’re very confident that Australians will support the NVES because they want to see a greater range of more efficient and less polluting cars in Australia” said Smart Energy Council external affairs manager Wayne Smith.
In a statement Smart Energy Council CEO John Grimes said the fossil fuel car industry’s position is “untenable and its campaign plan unacceptable.”
“The petrol car compainies are arguing Australians should pay more for petrol for longer, and cars should pollute more for longer. They want Australians to have less choice and to pay more for the same car as people in other developed nations.” said Grimes.
“That is completely out of touch with the views of ordinary Australians.”
— SmartEnergyCouncil (@SmartEnergyCncl) February 11, 2024
The FCAI has a track record of undermining Australia’s vehicle pollution regulation. A report released in May last year revealed how the FCAI has been working to weaken Australia’s proposed vehicle emission standards and slow down the uptake of electric vehicles. The 500 page report, including freedom of information requests, showed how the FCAI had confidential briefings to government officials and bureaucrats in their efforts to stop or slow the implementation of vehicle efficiency standards in Australia and worked with other fossil fuel lobby groups as part of its plan to dilute climate policy.
With data showing the climate crisis is now clearly accelerating, and report after report detailing the devastating health impacts of petrol and diesel car exhaust, the fossil fuel car lobby must now end its dangerous sabotage campaign.
There is simply too much at stake.
Daniel Bleakley is a clean technology researcher and advocate with a background in engineering and business. He has a strong interest in electric vehicles, renewable energy, manufacturing and public policy.