The Motor Trades Association of Australia (MTAA) CEO Richard Dudley says the time for ‘cheap pot shots’ and airing ‘facts of convenience’ from ‘bad actors’ is over and wants to stop “voices thick on rhetoric but thin on facts”.

His call for sensible discussion rather than noisy advocacy from special interests comes after a week of claims and counter-claims that the car industry was conspiring to slow down the replacement of ICE vehicles with electric vehicles.

The MTAA wants a national strategic plan to transition Australia’s car fleet dependency on internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to ZLEV.

Mr Dudley said this plan needed to be “much more than simply slapping a target down for a number of electric vehicles to be sold by a specific time”.

He said groups such as the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) should recognise that 100 per cent of the automotive industry “supports meaningful achievable and considered CO2 targets”.

Mr Dudley said that rather than ‘lamenting’ and or ‘demonising’ critical facts about the effects of the EV transition, advocates should tell Australians what they are entitled to know or produce the evidence to support their assertions.

Firstly, he said that CO2 targets, incentives and subsidies on their own would not achieve ZLEV market penetration improvements of the magnitude of some forecasts in the nominated timeframes.

Secondly he said that Australia is a right-hand drive market and that less than a third of global total vehicle production is for right-hand drive markets. The Australian market is significantly less than other prominent right-hand drive markets, including the UK, India, and Japan. It is not a foregone conclusion that an EV model available in larger right-hand markets will necessarily be exported to Australia.”

Mr Dudley said the MTAA last month facilitated a historic summit of 10 leading automotive industry associations to determine national positions ahead of “mobility’s most critical crossroad”.

He said the motor industry had received and considered global international and domestic research and analysis which had provided an unassailable picture of what is coming down the new EV vehicle pipeline for the next 10 to 15 years.

“He said the research and analysis came not from one but several respected global independent sources which all essentially come to the same conclusions – the same conclusions industry agreed to.”

“A national strategic plan to transition our national car fleet dependency on ICE vehicles to ZLEVs needs to be much more than simply slapping a target down for a number of electric vehicles to be sold by a specific time,” Mr Dudley said.

The MTAA said in a statement that it firmly believes the national strategic ZLEV plan proposed by the Albanese Government is long overdue and critical to Australia’s future.

But Mr Dudley said the government must consider and align:

• CO2 emission reduction targets rather than EV sales targets
• Recognise Australian consumers’ desire for at-home charging (79 per cent) and the challenges this provides along with public charging infrastructure requirements and a national rollout plan
• The people and skills required to still service, repair, and maintain both a (growing) electric and the legacy ICE fleet
• Fuel quality and security
• Properly targeted subsidies and incentives and, significantly, to not penalise Australians if they are forced to ensure their mobility in an ICE or Hybrid car
• Tariff and taxation

Mr Dudley said groups such as the EVC, rather than clambering on soapboxes decrying the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) voluntary C02 target, should instead “recognise the significance of 100 per cent of the industry is 100 per cent supporting meaningful achievable and considered CO2 targets”. 

He said that “rather than lamenting and, in some cases demonising other presented critical facts”,  groups such as the EVC should explain to Australians why they are not entitled to know critical facts about the issue.

He said these groups should tell the public “why any of the following is wrong and produce the evidence to support it:

• CO2 targets, incentives, and subsidies on their own will not achieve ZLEV market penetration improvements of the magnitude of some forecasts in the nominated timeframes
• Australia is a right-hand drive market. Less than a third of global total vehicle production is for right-hand drive markets. The Australian market is significantly (smaller) than other prominent right-hand drive markets, including the UK, India and Japan. It is not a foregone conclusion that an EV model available in larger right-hand markets will necessarily be exported to Australia
• While Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) will become prolific in left-hand drive markets, there is significantly less information on whether any right-hand drive variants will be produced and made available to the Australian market.
• 59 per cent of vehicles sold in Australia are dual cab utilities or large SUVs. Dual cab utility vehicles have been Australian consumers’ number one choice for almost seven years. In July 2022, single or dual cab utilities occupied four of the top 10 market positions (1, 2, 8 &9), with small and large SUVs taking five positions. One passenger vehicle made it into the top 10 of all vehicles sold (position 6).
• A significant proportion of Australia’s new vehicle stock is and will for the medium term continue to be sourced from Asia.”

Mr Dudley asked: “Should Australians not know that according to all available industry data, their number one vehicle type choice may not be available or even banned in some jurisdictions in 13 years? Is it right to spin that (EV) utilities are being produced and some will make it here when there are no facts to support the assertion?”

Other points made by the MTAA included:

• BEV offerings now, during the next 18 months, and over the next eight years are mostly high-value prestige vehicles which cost more than $50,000 – even though independent research says, 65 per cent of consumers want an EV under $50,000.
• Global vehicle production is still recovering with ongoing supply chain delays which are more pronounced for some EV brands and models. Add to this supply chain issues for rare earth minerals necessary for battery production.
• Are the announcements by the fourth largest global vehicle producer that battery supply will significantly impact the rollout of electric vehicles to be ignored?
• Are we not going to consider and integrate a plan for the skills and the people required to still service and repair not only a ZLEV fleet but a still large legacy fleet?
• Are we going to persist with a scattergun approach to incentives and emerging patchwork legislation regulation limited time offers for early adopters and free reign on user charging to make sure electric vehicles pay their way?

Mr Dudley said it is in the government, industry, and stakeholders’ hands to develop and implement a comprehensive all-inclusive plan that learns from international lessons and delivers on expectations while recognising our unique location, geography, market and criticality, Australians’ ongoing reliance on the car. 

Meanwhile, MTA WA CEO Stephen Moir has also warned that too much noise surrounding Australia’s transition to low and net zero emission vehicles was increasing the amount of under-informed public discourse and is counter-productive.

“Our message is simple: let’s all work together to make the transition to EV’s as quickly as possible – and let’s ensure we all agree on achievable outcomes based on facts,” Mr Moir said.

“For example, the first reality we all need to accept is that as a continent, Australia is one of the world’s smallest new car markets.

“Despite pro-EV lobby groups like the Electric Vehicle Council acknowledging and blaming government policy for EV demand outstripping supply, Australia is never going to be the highest priority for many of their own manufacturer members because of the basic law of supply and demand. 

“There also is a long way to go before EV technology and the needs of the average Australian align. We are near the bottom of the new car sales statistics but a long way ahead of most other countries for the number of kilometres we all travel each year.”

Mr Moir said “lobby groups with vested interests can talk up a utopian all-EV tomorrow, but the fact is Australia has unique challenges that must be addressed collaboratively to ensure we don’t make a rare-earth rod for our own backs.”

The Australian Automotive Dealers Association (AADA) said that the automotive industry supports the need for a vehicle emissions standard but restricting the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 is a risky approach for Australia and its unique circumstances.

“The industry supports a vehicle emissions standard, but it needs to be one that is realistic and does not unduly punish consumers or result in motorists holding on to their older vehicles for longer,” said AADA CEO James Vootman.

“We keep hearing calls for Australia to implement vehicle emissions standards which are in line with those that exist in the US and Europe. It is a fact that such standards have been in place in the US and the EU for well over a decade, allowing those countries an appropriate and achievable transition period.

“It is also a fact that in the US and the EU vehicle emissions standards are complemented by generous incentives for consumers. In a market like Germany, you can get up to $A13,000 in up-front incentives before tax benefits. This level of incentive is not available to consumers in Australia, and it does not appear to be on the horizon.

“Australia is a very small right-hand drive vehicle market in global terms, and it is situated at the end of a long and complex supply chain. These factors need to be taken into account when developing a vehicle emissions policy which is fit for purpose.”

But the EVC chief executive Behyad Jafari said: “The only fuel efficiency standards that will make a difference are standards in line with those that exist in the US and Europe. 

“Australia missed the boat by 30 years in introducing fuel efficiency standards making us the world’s dumping ground for dirty vehicles today. If we finally get around to it and then introduce standards that don’t work that would be a tragedy.

“Car manufacturers sell the bulk of their vehicles into markets with fuel efficiency standards because that helps avoid penalties. There is currently no such incentive in Australia, which relegates this market to a lower order priority.

“If we want to see larger and more frequent shipments of EVs to Australia, the government should ignore the weak standards some in industry are lobbying for.

“There is no path to net zero by 2050 unless Australia stops selling emitting vehicles by 2035. Cars in Australia have a 15-year average life span. If we’re still selling a significant quantity of combustion engine vehicles in 2036 we fail on net zero. It’s that simple.”

By Neil Dowling and John Mellor