Electric car industry wants subsidies to grow Australian market (current national sales = 4 cars a week)

Apparently, what electric cars need is not better performance but better subsidies:

Australia’s electric car market was unlikely to take off beyond its current tiny niche unless the federal government introduced subsidies to encourage consumers, says Nissan’s global chairman Carlos Ghosn.

It’s a micro-mini-market for electric cars in Australia:

Despite record sales of new cars, just 219 of the 1.2 million new vehicles sold in Australia in 2016 were electric, even that was a 90 per cent drop from the previous year. Battery powered cars represented only 0.0018 per cent of the total market.

People buy cars to get places. Governments “buy” cars to change the weather.

One of the justifications for subsidies was that sales of electric cars were not driven by consumer demand, but by governments’ desire to reduce emissions.

How rich is the State of California?

In California, sales of Nissan’s Leaf Electric vehicle, which retails at US$30,680, attracts a US$2,500 clean vehicle rebate, a $7,500 federal tax credit and gets some preferential treatment on high occupancy vehicle lanes.

You know a car is bad when it is allowed to go in “bus” lanes.

h/t Dave B

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