Solar Citizens is dismayed to see the Coalition attacking a key cost of living and carbon savings policy, the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.
“As reported in The Australian, the Coalition plans to weaken the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard if it comes to government. This would be a huge step backward for cost of living and energy security, making Australians more reliant on expensive imported fossil fuels,” said Solar Citizens CEO Heidi Lee Douglas.
“The passing of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards in May 2024 was a massive policy breakthrough to enable more Australians to save thousands of dollars per year by ditching expensive, unstable petrol prices,”
“As it stands the new efficiency standard supports more efficient, cheaper-to-run vehicles into the Australian market, including more efficient petrol models, electric vehicles, and hybrids.
“The proposed weakening of the standard, by abolishing fines on car companies who don’t meet the emission reduction targets, caves into pressure from the legacy car industry - and puts their interests ahead of Australian motorists who want the cost of living savings and health benefits the new standard will deliver.
“The average Australian spends $5000 on petrol each year and this new standard will reduce fuel costs by about $1000 per vehicle per year - a greater saving than the Coalition’s proposed fuel excise tax cut - or about $17,000 over the life of a standard vehicle.
"Making electric vehicles more affordable will put money back in people’s pockets that can be better spent on paying mortgages or rent, paying bills, or helping with the rising cost of living.
“Weakening the standard is a backward move by the Coalition and is a return to the years of delay and roadblocks when they were in power, which kept more affordable models of electric vehicles out of our market.
The 2024 New Vehicle Efficiency Standard impact analysis from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development [1] finds potential savings from the current NVES of about:
- $1000 per vehicle per year or $17,000 over the average life of the vehicle;
- $100 billion in fuel costs by 2050; and
- $5 billion in reduced health costs given the reduction in air pollution.
“With the world’s leading uptake of home solar, switching to an EV means more Australians can get behind the wheel of a car that runs on sunshine.”
“Affordable electric vehicles combined with electric vehicle-to-grid technologies will also make cars ‘batteries on wheels’, and thus provide further savings to Australian households”.
Background
[1] Cleaner, Cheaper to Run Cars: The Australian New Vehicle Efficiency Standard.
Department of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. February 2024.
https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/cleaner-cheaper-to-run-cars-the-australian-new-vehicle-efficiency-standard-consultation-impact-analysis-february2024.pdf