Electric vehicle sales in Australia are reportedly up 65 percent over the past 12 months, compared to 2021 when only 2.05 percent of new cars sold in Australia were EVs.
The latest State of Electric Vehicles report, released by the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) on Friday (14/10), showed that electric vehicles (EVs) accounted for 3.39 percent of total new car sales in Australia. during the 12-month period ending September.
Over the same period, the number of common fast and ultrafast charging locations across Australia rose 22 percent, to 350 locations.
See also: Bank Australia will stop giving loans on internal-combustion cars to speed-up EV adoption
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is leading the country’s transition to electric transport, with EVs accounting for 9.5 percent of total new car sales, compared to 0.8 percent recorded in the Northern Territory (NT).
However, the report says that Australia still has a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of EV sales.
“It’s encouraging to see so much momentum behind EV sales in Australia, but if we put the 3.4 percent figure in context, Germany has 26 percent, the UK 19 percent, and California 13 percent. The global average is 8.6 So, Australia still has a very long way to go (to catch up),” said EVC Policy Chief Jake Whitehead in a media release.
“We know from all the research that Australians are interested in driving EVs, but they don’t get as much access as other markets have. Because government policies on EVs lag behind others in the world, Australia is still not a major concern for global EV manufacturers. So, Australian consumers have a smaller variety of EV choices and they also have to wait months or even years to take delivery of a new vehicle.”
