Once upon a time under the former Morrison government, policies to promote electric cars were going to “finish the weekend”, while the vehicles themselves couldn’t tow your boat or trailer.
Now in opposition and with Scott Morrison consigned to the backbench, Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley has continued the attack on EV.
Alongside boats and trailers, Ley last week invoked another Australian cultural touchstone, the utility vehicle, when he told Sky News that “by the way, nobody in the world is making an electric vehicle”.
Hold my beer.
Not only are there several automakers making electric vehicles, but the most prominent of them all, Ford, has already started delivering them to customers in the US.
For decades, America’s best-selling vehicle of any type has been the Ford F-150 truck.
Since announcing the launch of the all-electric version of the truck last year, the company has received around 200,000 reservations. The company has reportedly had to double the capacity of the Michigan factory that builds it.
The launch of the Ford F-150 Lightning should have been hard to miss. US President Joe Biden put his foot on the accelerator of one last year during a visit to Ford’s headquarters in Michigan.
Chinese vehicle manufacturer LDV has started selling its T60 electric ute in New Zealand, with reports that it could be the first electric ute in the Australian market as early as this summer.
Jake Whitehead, head of policy at the Electric Vehicle Council, sat in two versions of the vehicles that “nobody in the world is making, by the way” during a visit to the US just a few weeks ago.
“She’s totally wrong and totally wrong,” said a confident Whitehead.
“But that’s just symptomatic of the former government’s head-in-the-sand mentality about what’s really going on in the world.”
Alongside Ford, Whitehead lists Amazon-backed Rivian and LDV among the companies already selling electric vehicles. Chevrolet is taking orders in the United States for its electric Silverado. Tesla has said that production of its Cybertruck will begin in 2023.
Australian startup Roev is turning the ubiquitous Toyota Hilux into an electric ute that should be available for businesses to buy next year.
“There are a number of models available on the market overseas,” Whitehead said. “But Australia has been left behind by the lack of vehicle emissions standards.
“It’s mind-boggling that there’s a certain segment of Australia that is obsessed with electric vehicle technology … Instead of having vehicles powered by Australian energy, they’d like us to rely on imported fuel.”
While it’s true that electric versions of trucks are more expensive than their internal combustion counterparts, they have much lower running and maintenance costs and can be powered by renewable energy. And they don’t blow particulates or CO2 out the tailpipe.
Ley’s statement echoes Scott Morrison’s 2019 claim that an EV “wasn’t going to tow your boat” about a year after Qantas filmed a Tesla towing a jumbo jet.
The Albanian government has said it will publish a consultation paper this month to develop a national electric vehicle strategy “to improve the uptake of electric vehicles and improve affordability and choice”.
king of gas
Announcing last week a further 47,000 square kilometers of Commonwealth waters would be open to oil and gas exploration, Resources Minister Madeleine King said it was “central to alleviating future national gas shortages” .
But Australia is not short of gas. Far. About 74% of Australia’s gas is exported in the form of LNG, with a further 7% flared as the LNG is produced (and the companies selling the LNG make spectacular profits).
The International Energy Agency has said that if the world is to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which the Albanian government says it wants, there could be no new oil or gas projects from of 2021.
Pseudo-coal
Catholic Cardinal George Pell described the “climate change movement” as a “pseudo-religion” in a column in The Australian newspaper at the weekend.
Pell, a skeptic of human-caused climate change, said Australia’s reluctance to build more coal-fired power was an example of virtue signaling, claiming that by 2021 “1,893 new coal-fired power stations” were built in worldwide, with 446 in India and 1,171. in China
Pell doesn’t say where his numbers come from. But the nonprofit group Global Energy Monitor tracks coal plants around the world, and its data is widely used by researchers and major institutions.
According to GEM, there are currently 187 coal-fired power plants under construction worldwide, not Pell’s 1,893 (maybe the others were pseudo-coal plants?).
Another 292 are in the “pre-construction” phase. China has 96 under construction (not 1,171) and India has 23 (not 446). There is no guarantee that the power plants in the planning stage will go ahead. For example, between 2010 and July 2022, GEM data shows that plans for 498 coal plants in China were cancelled.
If you don’t think the climate crisis is a thing, it will be easy to advocate for more coal.
Then all you can worry about is the estimated half a million or so deaths a year from coal power worldwide.
In any case, “there was no mandatory Catholic position on climate change because we are a religion, teaching faith and morals,” Pell wrote.
Someone call the pope.