Fossil car lobby told to withdraw “misleading claims” on car price hikes

The Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) has called on the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) to formally withdraw its claims that the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) will result in huge price increases on Australia’s most popular vehicles.

Pressure on the lobby group’s CEO to withdraw his claims grew stronger on Wednesday after the Sydney Morning Herald revealed internal documents suggesting the FCAI’s public statement had been highly exaggerated.

“The FCAI has been promoting extraordinary projections that claim the price of popular car models would increase by $6000 to $25,000 under the government’s proposed legislation,” said the EVC in a statement.

“However, an internal FCAI briefing paper, obtained by the media, shows that the FCAI’s actual modelling make more realistic assumptions based on trends in consumer and car market behaviour.”

The FCAI document referred to is a briefing paper by S&P Global Research which projects electric cars and utes will dominate the car market in Australia by 2030, even without a new vehicle efficiency standard.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald the document shows the share of ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles sold in Australia would fall from 88% in 2021 (not including hybrids) to just 24% in 2030.

The FCAI’s vehicle price projections assume EV market share, vehicle model efficiencies and model sales would stay the same in 2030 as they were in 2023, an absurd assumption based on current global trends.

EVC CEO Behyad Jafari say industry experts know FCAI’s claims are deliberately misleading.

“Anyone who knows anything about how efficiency standards actually work across the globe would recognise the FCAI’s public claims about price are not honest or credible.” said Jafari.

“You won’t hear any actual car maker echo the FCAI’s claims because they know their credibility would be shredded if they did.”

Majority of auto industry now supports NVES

It’s been a tumultuous fortnight for the FCAI after its CEO Tony Weber claimed the New Vehicle Standard would cost car buyers $38 billion, a figure that was broadly rejected.

In the days following the government’s announcement, media was reporting that the FCAI was threatening to run a public fear campaign “similar to that waged by the mining industry against the Rudd government’s mining tax”.

After rumours of ructions within the FCAI regarding the CEO’s comments, last week Hyundai announced its support for the NVES. On Wednesday, Volkswagen Group Australia joined Hyundai publicly supporting the government’s preferred Option B.

After Volkswagen’s commitment, Jafari posted that a majority of Australia’s automotive industry now supports the NVES, in stark contrast to the FCAI’s CEO’s position.

FCAI’s misleading claims parroted by coalition politicians

The claim that the NVES would push up the prices of popular models like the Ford Raptor by $6000 and other models by $25,000 were parroted by opposition leader Peter Dutton, who was one of the Coalition MPs who ran the successful fear campaign against the mining tax 14 years ago.

The six week anti-mining tax campaign 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.

Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has also been spreading misinformation after posting the FCAI’s list of projected vehicle prices under the NVES. In what would be fantastic news for would-be EV buyers, the FCAI and Senator Canavan project the NVES will cut new Tesla Model 3 prices by $15,940 and Model Y by $15,390.

While the fossil car lobby and its political representatives seem determined to manufacture outrage against a policy that will literally improve the health of every Australian, its highly unlikely to succeed in 2024.

With a majority of car makers now supporting the NVES and a rapidly growing electric vehicle community in Australia, there are plenty of strong voices calling out the misinformation.