Correct, we dont get a web browser, even when stationary, although I think the US approach of allowing a web browser whilst driving is very dangerous, which isnt a lot to do with autonomy.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Electric vehicle incentives in Australia compared to rest of the world
- Thread starter Xwing
- Start date
I have worked with the auto industry a couple of times and Australia does not have high labour rates in the auto industry compared to many places. The U.S. has massive legacy costs and Europe has hugely powerful unions. The average Australian production line worker actually is a lower cost than the average U.S. production line worker.
In the end auto making is capital intensive not labour intensive hence why some of the most expensive places on the planet have car industries (Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Japan etc).
The biggest determinants of success are;
Government support
Access to markets
Economies of scale
If you had the above factors set then Australia would be a good location being the leading supplier of Lithium and having skilled and flexible car workers (plus hundreds of millions in car making infrastructure about to go dormant). But it would need government support and to grow the EV sales base.
alpal
Member
Seriously? Aust has failed in every auto manufacturing enterprise - despite propping the industry up for many years with wads of tax dollars - and Tesla would or should be interested to jump in? Your kidding. It's run by serious business people who, I imagine, could find many alternatives with cheaper and more 'interested' labour resources and much more receptive governments.
If you consider how keen our government has been in helping people to buy an EV now (ie virtually nothing), why should Tesla not reciprocate and do as much. I think it's wonderful that they bother with us at all. The superchargers (I can just imagine the trouble they had getting those through our councils), the service and product support.
We need a huge shift in attitude ...
Aw look, forget it. Enough government bashing.
I think Australia has a brilliant attitude towards trying to fix some of the global problems we have (our uptake of solar technology for example), but governments don't fix things or make things (I think the NBN is a great example of this), individuals and groups of driven entrepreneurs do. That's what is needed to attract patronage from a company like Tesla. Not 'please come and setup here', but 'we will set up here with you...'.
If I was just twenty years younger ...
If you consider how keen our government has been in helping people to buy an EV now (ie virtually nothing), why should Tesla not reciprocate and do as much. I think it's wonderful that they bother with us at all. The superchargers (I can just imagine the trouble they had getting those through our councils), the service and product support.
We need a huge shift in attitude ...
Aw look, forget it. Enough government bashing.
I think Australia has a brilliant attitude towards trying to fix some of the global problems we have (our uptake of solar technology for example), but governments don't fix things or make things (I think the NBN is a great example of this), individuals and groups of driven entrepreneurs do. That's what is needed to attract patronage from a company like Tesla. Not 'please come and setup here', but 'we will set up here with you...'.
If I was just twenty years younger ...
Mind you Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, Japan most professions have a lot lower incomes compared to AUS. For example Ave income of a Doctor in Germany is just over 45000 euro compared to $200000-$300000 aud. There is a lot more people in Europe and Japan than Australia. A lot easier to find cheap labour. And believe me large companies take advantage of cheap labour. We are such a small market that it's a lot more expensive to manufacture here compared to those countries labour, logistics costs are huge, less local suppliers competition and government support would have to be huge compared to tax payers value. We are a lot more expensive in everything compared to those countries you mentioned. It does not mean because a country is develop that a country is expensive. Also those countries have lower company taxes compared to Australia. There is very little reasons to manufacture in Australia. Your also wrong that manufacturing is not labour intensive it's very labour intensive. How many 1000s of people to you think work at the Tesla Fremont Factory to produce only 50000 cars in 1 year 2000 or 3000 or 5000 people. I'm not sure but a lot of people. Also I bet the worst paid people at the Tesla factory don't earn a min of aud $25 ($19.3usd) per hour like they would in Australia.
Regarding EV incentives there is almost nothing in Australia. I always voted liberal however if labour mentions anything about EV incentives they will have my vote. If not liberal will have my vote as Malcolm Turnbull is a Tesla fan but his hands a tired with his MPs alot of them are completely against climate change.
Last edited:
I know the figures, from a labour rate perspective its often more expensive manufacturing overseas than here - especially the first world countries that have car industries. Shipping is effectively free with 1,000,000 cars imported a year, it costs almost nothing to ship the cars out on those empty ships. In fact it can sometimes cost more to send a car from Adelaide to Melbourne than Adelaide to the US (depending on time of year).
Car making is capital intensive, labour rates dont come into it as much as you think. The biggest issues are economies of scale, government support and access to markets. The trick is to really pump out enough cars. For mass market cars you want your plant to be building at least 200,000 cars a year.
I think we will eventually see EV subsidies here in Australia at a federal level, but it would be good to see the state governments chip in with reduced stamp duty and registration fees (like ACT).
Car making is capital intensive, labour rates dont come into it as much as you think. The biggest issues are economies of scale, government support and access to markets. The trick is to really pump out enough cars. For mass market cars you want your plant to be building at least 200,000 cars a year.
I think we will eventually see EV subsidies here in Australia at a federal level, but it would be good to see the state governments chip in with reduced stamp duty and registration fees (like ACT).
Last edited:
Yes the actual shipping costs out of the country would be peanuts but that is not where the costs are. It's the port, custom,country import costs where the high logistics costs are. It's also all the imported parts you would require for manufacturing. What % of AUS manufactured parts in a Toyota hybrid Camry. Not much I would guess. It's also what you say about the mayor cities. They are to far apart. It's just easier to ship direct. All this doesn't matter the market is too small, the tax is too high,labour and building costs are too high absolutely everything we are in the most expensive top ten in the world.
doctorwho
Active Member
The problem is that successive Governments have been propping up automakers to make the wrong sort of cars. Not only are they yesterday's cars but we are trying to compete at the bottom end of the market rather than moving up-market into more profitable segments. It's what happens when decisions about what to make are made off-shore
The minimum US wage is about US7, min german wage around 9 euro, and min aus wage is near AUD18. With currency conversion australia isnt even close to competative. The cost of employment in aus is then significantly higher with payroll tax, superannuation, long service leave loadings, too many paid days off, and short working days.
Sort these out, and Australia will once again have a vibrant manufacturing industry.
And yes I do know how much car production line people are paid at Elizabeth, and I can see that it could never make commercial sense.....so GM called it a day, even though the government subsidies were significant.
There is currently a big push in the USA to make $15 an hour the minimum wage there, that's broadly in line with the current Australian minimum wage. More of an issue for Australian car manufacturers was economies of scale and for a Holden the market for large cars was getting smaller, exacerbating the problem.
Back on topic, I don't personally expect help to purchase an EV but neither do think it's reasonable to pay a punitive tax on new technology in LCT. Then the supposed reduction for low consumption vehicles is reducing each year because the standard LCT threshold is regularly reviewed in line with inflaton but the the low consumption threshold is fixed so the discount will eventually become nothing.
Back on topic, I don't personally expect help to purchase an EV but neither do think it's reasonable to pay a punitive tax on new technology in LCT. Then the supposed reduction for low consumption vehicles is reducing each year because the standard LCT threshold is regularly reviewed in line with inflaton but the the low consumption threshold is fixed so the discount will eventually become nothing.
If I look at the Model S designer with my preferred options, I get a $200K car. Out of this, LCT is $26.4k and stamp duty is $9.9K. Plus GST, which I imagine would be 18.1K - assuming GST is payable on LCT and stamp duty; not sure about this. Or a total of of $54.4K in taxes. If GST is not payable on LCT and stamp duty, that becomes $51.1K. Or just over 25% of the cost is taxes.
raynewman
Active Member
Yes, exactly. So if the total amount is 200K, then that means the amount without GST is 200K/1.1 or 181.8K and the GST payable is 200K-181.8K or 18.2K. You can check this 181.8K * 1.1 = 200K or 181.8K * 0.1 = 18.2K.
And Im sure your 18k contribution will be used wisely, such as 3 helicopter flights by a pollie to parties, or maybe a summit on how to avoid approving summon. Possibly a retired PM's business class flights for a few months.
alpal
Member
25% of the cost of the car is taxes. Oh, we are so lucky that Tesla even bothers ... And I can just imagine the other grief they experience here i.e. council approvals for s/c's or what features do they need to turn off because the powers that be consider our dumb citizens could never safely use that!
I'm going back to petrol. Hmmmm. Well maybe not.
I still remember my argument with vic roads when they informed me that as my car wasn't a hybrid it didn't qualify for reduced rego (about $100 off my purchase price of about 185m). We still have a way to go.
I'm going back to petrol. Hmmmm. Well maybe not.
I still remember my argument with vic roads when they informed me that as my car wasn't a hybrid it didn't qualify for reduced rego (about $100 off my purchase price of about 185m). We still have a way to go.
alpal
Member
I think we need to look at what the initial goal was, especially for the LCT, and work out if it is actually achieving this goal.
I can imagine the justification for LCT would sound like "Cars that cost more then $X are so expensive that only the rich would buy them as luxury items - these are people who should be paying more taxes. Besides we want to encourage people to buy locally produced cars."
However:
- We also have GST, wasn't this the idea with GST? The higher the cost the purchase the more tax you pay? Why do we need both LCT and GST?
- Locally produced cars???
- Assumption that the only value more expensive cars provide is added luxury is not correct.
- I have seen the opinion that the Model S is not a luxury car.
- Even if you want to argue that the Model S is a luxury car, it seems clear that many people are buying for other reasons.
- The Model S with no options, in the cheapest Australian state, is $136K. The cheapest Model 3 is expected to be at least $60K.
- I see brand new ICE cars being advertised for $20K. Possibly before taxes, not sure. To be sure lets make that $35K inclusive (possibly on the high side).
- I think people who buy Tesla cars are not comparing with the equivalent value ICE car. i.e. if you don't buy a $136K Telsa you are not necessarily going to buy a $136K ICE car instead (unless you are indeed rich). More likely they will purchase a considerably cheaper ICE car instead.
- The electric cars provides benefits to environment and safety that benefits as all. This should result in reduced government spending.
- Hence it is is governments best interests if people buy these cars instead.
- An excellent argument could be made that they should be investing in public transport instead; however our current federal government is equally poor at this too. Our state governments aren't necessarily much better. Hence people buy the Model S because they can't imagine the public transport meeting their needs (or walking / bike riding for that matter) and they don't want an ICE car. I could write many pages on this point.
- Hence the $35K vs $136K is heavily biased in favour of the ICE car. While this is not something that can be easily "fixed", the government should not be contributing to the problem with large taxes (especially LCT).
- Even when the Model 3 comes up, it probably will be at least $60K. I would imagine with reasonable options (e.g. AWD, biggest battery, autopilot, possible upfront supercharger fees) it could exceed the LCT threshold.
- I haven't done the sums to verify this, however it sounds like the LCT also encourages buying the Model S with fewer features then you want and then spending more after purchase on upgrading the car afterwards. Hence sending more money overseas.
More facts and citations for the above would be good
. Maybe could be written up as a formal letter or something addressed to the appropriate politicians.Any chance of paying a measly 0.2m and buying a Model S for me? It is OK, I don't want a expensive car like yours...
(hate to imagine the insurance premium!!!)
alpal
Member
Similar threads
