Australia will shortly pass 100,000 EVs on its roads.
That’s according to a new report released on February 7 by the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC).
While the 28-page Australian Electric Vehicle Industry Recap 2022 is a review of established information, it also includes new details such as the milestone estimate.
The council had exclusive access to cumulative EV sales data before the most recent reporting year, so they can add up the years gone by to arrive at more than 83,000 EVs.
The figure is also split between battery electric vehicles (BEVs) at 79% and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) at 21%.
About 44,000 EVs were in circulation at the beginning of 2022.
The new report also notes that the number of EVs purchased increased by 86% in the last year, with 3.8% of all new cars purchased being electric.
However, EVC chief executive Behyad Jafari warns there is no room for complacency.
“If you think you’re seeing more EVs on the road than you used to you’re right, but if we want to hit our national emissions target we won’t make it on this current trajectory,” he says.
“To achieve the federal government’s emission target we’ll need a near fully zero-emission vehicle fleet by 2050. To stay on track that means reaching one million EVs by 2027 and around three million by 2030.
“We can definitely hit these goals, but not without an ambitious fuel efficiency standard to expand the supply of EVs to Australia. The federal government should introduce this standard this year as a matter of urgency.”
Jafari says Australia has no reason to continue to lag the world on EV take up.
“The enthusiasm is there in abundance, we just need our governments to continue the policy reform that makes it easy to transition away from the exhaust pipe.”
The new report also notes the number of public chargers has increased from 3413 in 2021 to 4943 in 2022. Fast chargers are up from 231 to 365.
