Australia's electric car future will be driven by public servants

Labor's pledge to have 50 per cent of the government fleet switched to electric vehicles by 2025, and the much tougher target of a 50 per cent electric vehicle composition of all new car sales by 2030, is aimed at making government departments the key drivers of change in the years ahead.

With electric vehicles currently representing 0.2 per cent of all new car sales, the market accelerator must go flat to the floor in the next few years to achieve the ambitious targets announced.

Such a major and rapid shift will turn traditional fleet modelling on its head.

While there are only about 1500 vehicles on the Australian government fleet - all under three-year leases - there are thousands more which are leased and salary-packaged by public servants.

Recharging infrastructure suppliers will be racing to keep ahead of the policy agenda, with the Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated that each new recharging station will cost the government about $8000.

Buyer incentives will be vital, with Labor offering a 20 per cent business tax depreciation on new electric vehicle purchases. Expect to see many more incentives such as this.

Australia's car importers are already gearing up for the plug-in electric market to climb like a voltage meter.

Elsewhere in the world, the industry is shifting on its axis with Jaguar's i Pace electric car winning the 2019 world car of the year award.

Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mitsubishi, Renault, Porsche and Jaguar all sell plug-in electric cars here with prices starting from $50k, and both Audi and Mercedes-Benz will have cutting-edge new models here by year's end.

So what does the electric vehicle election surge mean for Canberra, and what do you need to know?

Anyone repaying or leasing a conventional premium car is squarely in the sights of the car brands who already have your details and have identified you as a potential future electric vehicle customer.

The ACT government's plan to switch as many of its 600-strong fleet to electric as possible in the next 18 months will be a catalyst for increased local market interest and activity. Recharging in the ACT using renewable energy will deliver another green bonus.

Local market competition will intensify enormously in the next 12-18 months. As a result, prices must fall and Chinese cars will drive the low-cost end of the market.

China's emerging car makers receive industry credits for every electric vehicle produced, and next year 12 per cent of every Chinese car company's production must be electric.

China has 486 registered electric vehicle makers. A little over 1 million electric cars were sold in that market last year. These companies are keen to export, and Australia has a proven record as a good test market for bigger Chinese brands like Geely, Great Wall and SAIC.

Tesla has proved that with product and flair, electric cars can be successful without the need for traditional dealership networks. This opens the door start-up Chinese brands such as Nio, BYD, Qiantu, Byton and GAC Motor to offer product here online, using low cost as the buyer leverage.

The only major constraint is international supply, with regional distributors worldwide in an arm-wrestle to secure supply from the factory.

Driving range is increasing with every new vehicle generation and a 300km driving range is now common, which should satisfy the majority of weekday or commuting requirements.

Arriving here in a few months is the newest generation of the world's best-selling electric vehicle, the $50k Nissan Leaf. Purpose-engineered and built, it has a driving range of 270km so it suits as an urban and suburban runabout.

The Hyundai Kona Electric costs $60k and has a claimed range of 449km, which added to its SUV practicality makes it more suitable for a coast or Sydney trip.

Higher cost buys bigger batteries, more performance and greater range, such as that offered by the Tesla S 100 D (528km), and the Jaguar i-Pace (446km).

As electric vehicles require more trip planning than a rapid-refill combustion vehicle, tools and apps are available to help and more will arrive soon as part of your vehicle choice.

Be warned: recharging from a 240-volt home powerpoint is very slow. In the case of the Tesla S it adds about 10km of range for every hour the car is plugged in.

A dedicated wall charger in your garage, which converts your household AC electric current to DC, will charge at four times that rate. This opens up off-peak charging, which is cheaper.

Commercial re-chargers use DC current, which speeds up the process enormously.

Australia's urban and regional recharging network will need to grow ten-fold to support the bullish plans for our electric car future.

With 800 recharging stations of various output capabilities nationwide, the network is barely capable of supporting the modest electric fleet out on our roads today.

Corporate self interest is also hard at work. The eight Tesla superchargers in Goulburn and Wodonga, for instance, deliver a full charge in just over an hour. But they only have sockets that fit Tesla cars. That's fine for Tesla owners but bad news for the rest of us.

The industry's teething issues with different manufacturers using different types of recharging sockets has finally been resolved. The most common type is the CCS2 socket, which is suitable for both AC and DC current.

There are many and various claims made about the times required to recharge. Tritium, the Brisbane-based company which is rolling out the NRMA's fastcharger network through NSW and the ACT, claims it can charge most battery electric cars to 80 per cent capacity within 30 minutes.

Car companies are urging consumers to buy now, yet commonsense suggests otherwise. New vehicles are coming quickly down the pipeline to us.

By mid-year, Tesla is expected to roll out its Model 3, a compact-sized all-wheel drive which is getting rave reviews overseas and will be priced between $50 to $60k. That's very affordable price for an industry innovator.

Mercedes-Benz has a complete range of electric cars coming under the EQ banner, with the small EQC sedan arriving soon.

To escape its sullied record of emissions cheating, Volkswagen is spending $30 billion by 2023 on electric cars. Its new ID range will be formidable and is formulated on massive production volumes to return a long-term profit. It will be here within two years.

Audi's electric e-tron, arriving by the end of the year, looks utterly conventional and wagon-practical on the outside.

And then there's the international industry powerhouse Toyota, which is yet to fully show its hand but is preparing a deluge of product in the next six years, including a plug-in electric variant of Australia's top-selling vehicle, the Hilux ute.

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