Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

ALP electric vehicle policy

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Luckily tradies are sensible people, a prerequisite for keeping the country running in the background. They concluded there are no suitable Evs for them available in Australia, nor will there be for several years. The 'pile-on' was by politically driven commentators with no skin in the game.
 
  • Funny
Reactions: Nuclear Fusion
Luckily tradies are sensible people, a prerequisite for keeping the country running in the background. They concluded there are no suitable Evs for them available in Australia, nor will there be for several years. The 'pile-on' was by politically driven commentators with no skin in the game.
Well thats not quite correct. My in-law is a tradie and he recently purchased a french made fully electric van. It was something like $25k. Not a lot of range, but he is a city tradie so it works for him. I didnt know these existed. Its either renault or citroen....can’t remember which. Its also hard to find on their website.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hovean
You don’t think it’s much better to reduce the price of lower cost EVs so that people don’t need to save as much in the first place? It would also help improve the market economics for the big manufacturers to start bringing more EV models into Australia and give people more choice at the lower price points, which creates a virtuous circle as the market grows.

Tesla, Porsche, Audi, BMW etc don’t need that kind of help in my view.
What lower cost EVs have 500+ km real world range?
 
What lower cost EVs have 500+ km real world range?
A significant number of cars in cities never leave those cities. They dont need 500km range. Thats why nissan leaf is so popular (comparatively speaking).
when I got my first tesla around 12 months after they entered aust the standard line was “can it get to melb”. A lack of superchargers then meant the answer was always no. Indeed I had the same irrational fear and refused to pay my deposit until tesla agreed to include a mobile connector for the car.
Once the answer became yes the question became “can it get to sydney”. Now that one is solved its now “can it get to the middle of the outback some 2000km away on dirt roads“. The answer of course is no, but if you ask the question back, when did you last do that journey, the answer is generally “never”. Sure some people need range and enjoy long journeys, but its not all.
 
Last edited:
Of course it would make sense. Restarting SOME kind of manufacturing in this country would be great- look at what happens when you depend on China for everything!
We should be subsidizing and building solar panels and batteries.
A genuinely helpful move.
Would it make sense for Australia to subsidise the creation of domestic battery cell production? Say for example we license Tesla's 4680 cell line and then we start building high nickel cells.

Nickel is $15,000 per tonne if we export it directly
A high nickel kWh worth of 4680 would be in the long run $100
400Wh per KG, 60% of which would be nickel
1 tonne of nickel would create 240 kWh
240kWh @ $100 = $24,000

$24,000 / $15,000 = 60% improvement in revenue per nickel tonne

The policy announcement a couple of days before the EV subsidy was on a $15b manufacturing fund - projects for batteries & EV components etc. would specifically be backed. Alternatively we could just try fracking more and see if that works.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Vostok
A significant number of cars in cities never leave those cities. They dont need 500km range. Thats why nissan leaf is so popular (comparatively speaking).
when I got my first tesla around 12 months after they entered aust the standard line was “can it get to melb”. A lack of superchargers then meant the answer was always no. Indeed I had the same irrational fear and refused to pay my deposit until tesla agreed to include a mobile connector for the car.
Once the answer became yes the question became “can it get to sydney”. Now that one is solved its now “can it get to the middle of the outback some 2000km away on dirt roads“. The answer of course is no, but if you ask the question back, when did you last do that journey, the answer is generally “never”. Sure some people need range and enjoy long journeys, but its not all.
The previous post implies that 500km+ range is a luxury
If so, time to apply the luxury car tax on a Mazda 3
 
Which is the stupidity of basing a luxury car tax on price
FYI, a recent survey placed range as the greatest factor in EV buying decision
I was bailed up by a middle aged gent at the supermarket today, wanted to talk tesla and of course point out to me that tesla’s useless in the outback and long journeys due to the range. So I asked him when he last took his shiny suberu to the outback, or even out of the city On a non-arterial road. When he answed “never” it was like a light bulb moment for him.
 
Speaking of shiny clean cars, Extreme E starts today.
Hopefully they do as good a job on AGW messaging as they have with the hardware. Climate scientist in the broadcast team what?
I'm disturbed that it’s yet another FIA race in Saudi Arabia but without Aramco signs everywhere I'm committed to pretending it’s Tatooine.
 
  • Funny
Reactions: Hungry Mile
I was bailed up by a middle aged gent at the supermarket today, wanted to talk tesla and of course point out to me that tesla’s useless in the outback and long journeys due to the range. So I asked him when he last took his shiny suberu to the outback, or even out of the city On a non-arterial road. When he answed “never” it was like a light bulb moment for him.
When that happens I pull out my phone and show them a picture of my Tesla in front of the Alice Springs town sign.
 
I was bailed up by a middle aged gent at the supermarket today, wanted to talk tesla and of course point out to me that tesla’s useless in the outback and long journeys due to the range. So I asked him when he last took his shiny suberu to the outback, or even out of the city On a non-arterial road. When he answed “never” it was like a light bulb moment for him.
Put a windsurfer, kayak, storage boot on the roof & mountain bikes on the back of your Tesla. Don’t be surprised with 40% range loss. I guess being able to carry those things should incur a luxury tax...
 
The problem with proposing manufacturing in Australia is the only cost you save is the cost of a boat from China, and the costs you add are increased wages, disconnect from supply chain, reduced scale, increased power costs and million other little details.
Not to mention all the other self-inflicted challenges we have here such as lack of consistency in government policy, high taxation, higher interest rates, less government backing etc etc.
 
The problem with proposing manufacturing in Australia is the only cost you save is the cost of a boat from China, and the costs you add are increased wages, disconnect from supply chain, reduced scale, increased power costs and million other little details.
Not to mention all the other self-inflicted challenges we have here such as lack of consistency in government policy, high taxation, higher interest rates, less government backing etc etc.
You also have a miniscule (but healthy) market in Australia, so the excess product would then need to be exported to a larger market, thereby negating any boar savings
 
I just can't see how its worth it for Tesla. Australia is just so incredibly expensive to do business in, even with a subsidy it wouldn't be worth it. And of the subsidy will disappear. Face it Australia, Tesla is not manufacturing in Australia.

I'm not saying Tesla should build a Gigafactory here, I'm saying Australian Federal Government should pay Tesla to license the factory designs. Then allow private companies to build 4680 sized batteries here in various chemistries. The 4680 shape could become a standardised form factor for everything (domestic storage, grid storage, automative, aviation, nautical etc) and if we can output 200GWh per year it would be enough to meaningfully reduce our reliance on Oil&Gas plus ensure the minerals are extracting are seeing maximum profit margin kept on shore.
 
You also have a miniscule (but healthy) market in Australia, so the excess product would then need to be exported to a larger market, thereby negating any boar savings
My post was getting a bit long by that stage but the same thought did occur to me :)
It’s all kind of sad really that the things which gives us pleasure like making things with our hands have become economically unviable due to our prosperity.
We have to satisfy ourselves with meaningless activities like playing “apocalypse survival” (aka. camping) and building trays on our utes or renovating our already-comfortable houses.
 
I'm not saying Tesla should build a Gigafactory here, I'm saying Australian Federal Government should pay Tesla to license the factory designs. Then allow private companies to build 4680 sized batteries here in various chemistries. The 4680 shape could become a standardised form factor for everything (domestic storage, grid storage, automative, aviation, nautical etc) and if we can output 200GWh per year it would be enough to meaningfully reduce our reliance on Oil&Gas plus ensure the minerals are extracting are seeing maximum profit margin kept on shore.
You do that and I will outcompete you by shipping the raw material to China and having them built with one cent per kilowatt hour electricity and one dollar per hour workers.
Then I’ll tap into the massive shipping hub that already serves China to distribute my products worldwide.
As @paulp noted up-thread, the only market you might have a chance at beating me is Australia itself, but with my first $10 billion I’ll buy you out and shut you down anyway :)
 
You do that and I will outcompete you by shipping the raw material to China and having them built with one cent per kilowatt hour electricity and one dollar per hour workers.
Then I’ll tap into the massive shipping hub that already serves China to distribute my products worldwide.
As @paulp noted up-thread, the only market you might have a chance at beating me is Australia itself, but with my first $10 billion I’ll buy you out and shut you down anyway :)

I’m not saying we’d be an exporter of batteries.

The batteries we’d make domestically would be used in Australia. This is only to help create a supply chain of batteries not as dependant on other nations. We’d use the batteries to electrify our transport industry, store renewable electricity generation (which means we may actually export electricity cheaper than neighbouring countries)

200gWh of batteries is 200,000,000 TONNES of (assuming 100wh per kg) material that we wouldn’t be shipping overseas but instead monetising far more rapidly right here in our own backyard. The utility of that 200m tonnes is wasted by exporting and in the long run, with automation, paying workers $1 per day isn’t the biggest cost saving anymore— having a tighter supply chain is.

if China want to outcompete and make cheaper batteries than we can make (including a small import levy) then that’s a great outcome, means we will be buying some seriously cheap batteries.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DOMn8