Equity is a key to the electric vehicle revolution

Ft: Shane Rattenbury MLA,

Jaguar recently announced that it will no longer manufacture petrol or diesel vehicles from 2025 but will focus exclusively on its range of electric vehicles (EVs).

Since the cheapest Jaguar currently starts at around $60,000, and you can pay over $300,000 for a top-of-the-range model, this might not seem like headline news. Barring an unlikely lottery win, most of us are never going to buy a brand-new Jag no matter what fuel it runs on.

But it draws attention to something that governments around the world need to think about as we travel down the road of the EV revolution: The upfront purchase price of EVs risks locking out the very people – those on low incomes – who would benefit the most from the cheap running costs of EVs. This is especially so in Australia, where the Federal Government’s failure on EV policies has left us at the back of the pack, with a poorly developed EV market.

Governments need to recognise this problem of EV equity and take steps to make EVs more accessible to more people.