Jaguar has repeated calls for the Australian government to better support electric vehicles (EVs).
Australia may lose the opportunity to develop a large EV technology sector due to a lack of government support, Jaguar Land Rover chief executive Dr Ralf Speth and Australian managing director Mark Cameron say.
They were speaking at the launch of Jaguar’s I-Pace EV, unveiled during the Invictus Games in Sydney.
“Electric vehicles are a great economic opportunity for Australia to showcase its natural resources and its ability to be a leader in this space, it’s an area that the government needs have a look at,” Cameron says, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Speth says the technology around EVs could provide opportunities for Australian companies.
“Think about vehicle automation, think about how you charge, how you pay for power and charging, all of the data flows from the vehicles and who gathers the data, what kind of data is collected and how it used and the protections around it,” he says.
Cameron says a lack of government incentives could ensure Australia remains a laggard when it comes to EV adoption.
“I think us leading the charge and creating more choice in the market at the luxury end will help us grow that market quite quickly, but the challenge is going to be for those volume manufacturers to bring their cars in volume and that’s where you need larger government support,” he says.
“The markets around the world where the acceptance and sales of EVs has happened rapidly have been where there is fiscal government support, like Norway, where half of all new vehicles registered are electric.”
Infrastructure Australia will present a paper to a Senate Select Committee on Electric Vehicles on October 25 outlining the ‘inevitability’ of EV uptake, the SMH reports.
“As major car manufacturers and countries transition to electric vehicles and hybrids, Australia will have little choice but to follow suit,” Infrastructure Australia’s executive director of policy and research Peter Colacino says.
Speth says while Jaguar Land Rover sees massive growth in the EV market, cars with internal combustion engines will continue to remain a large part of the global automotive market.
“Battery electric vehicles are the future of mobility, but we don’t want to create a negative perception of internal combustion engines or diesel demonisation, these vehicles are continuing to get more environmentally friendly,” Speth says.
Jaguar Land Rover’s plan to install 50kW charging stations at all its dealer networks will create the single largest EV charging infrastructure in the country, he adds.
The I-Pace is expected to arrive in Australia prior to Christmas, selling for about $119,000.
Extracted from Autotalk