News that deliveries to Australia of the Tesla Model 3 – the company’s first sub $60,000 electric vehicle – will not begin until 2019, nearly 3 years after enthusiasts put down a refundable deposit, shows just how far Australia has slipped in the race to vehicle electrification.

The rollout of the Model 3 is being described as the electric vehicle equivalent of the iPhone moment. If Tesla gets this right, and manages to master the challenges of mass-market production, that moment will have arrived. If it doesn’t, it is likely to be merely delayed and taken by another company or companies.

But consider the irony: In four months time, Australia will be home to the biggest lithium ion battery installation in the world, but it will also be among the last developed countries to take delivery of the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle made by the same company.

Australia is the only country in the world that actually has all the resources within its boundaries to create a battery storage industry – the minerals, cobalt and graphite and lithium, as well as the infrastructure and the manufacturing know-how.

So much so, that Australia could have one, or even two battery manufacturing plants (gigafactories) in place before an EV market takes off.

And while Queensland is building the world’s longest electric super-highway, and WA is also investing in a major charging network, they may seem like roads to nowhere given the small number of vehicles likely to use it.

Here’s the depressing news about the Australia EV market, and one that is only likely to get worse before it improves.

EV and PHEV sales in Australia actually fell in 2016, by nearly 25 per cent, and the early indications are for a similar fall in 2017. In Europe, it is estimated that 133,000 EVs and PHEVs were sold in the first half of the year.

Across the world, it is expected that one million EVs and PHEVs will be sold in 2017. Australia’s share should be around 15,000 if it was pulling its weight, according to Behyad Jafari, the head of the newly formed Electric Vehicle Council.

But in Australia in 2016 there were just three models available for less than $60,000: the Nissan Leaf, the plug-in hybrid SUV, Mitsubishi Outlander, along with the Renault Kangoo ZE commercial vehicle.