In this episode of EV Musings, Gary explores the electric vehicle market in Australia. He is joined by Sarah Aubrey, an electrification advocate, to discuss the current state of EV adoption in the country. They touch on the impact of government policies, the growth of EV sales, and the challenges faced by the Australian market.

The conversation highlights the recent shift in government incentives and the dominance of Tesla in the market.

Guest Details: Sarah Aubrey is one of Australia’s most respected electrification advocates. She is a pure force of nature when it comes to sharing and simplifying the facts about accessible, clean energy and electric cars.

A masterful storyteller and professionally trained voice-over actor, Sarah captures the heart of every message with ease and a touch of humour. It’s this down-to-earth approach that has drawn a legion of loyal followers from across the globe to her social media channels.

It all started in 2022, after reading “The Big Switch” that she decided it was time to act. With a firm belief that all actions, no matter how big or small, can make a difference - she set about getting an energy rating for her home.

“When our 115-year-old home got a dismal 2.9-Star energy rating from the Residential Efficiency Scorecard Assessor, it prompted us to begin our journey to full electrification and energy efficiency. Within a mere 2 months, our home underwent a remarkable transformation receiving a 10-Star energy efficiency rating.”

Now, she channels her boundless energy for sustainability with a can-do attitude to help others realise their own star-rated dream. With an honest and trustworthy approach to environmentally friendly product and service reviews, she interacts and engages with a diverse, global audience to spread the clean energy message with practical advice.

Sarah’s exceptional on-camera skills are a testament to her experience as a renowned voice-over actor. Professionally trained, Sarah graduated from Newcastle University and later the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).

Originally from the United Kingdom, Sarah arrived in Australia with her parents as a young girl. Today, she lives in Sydney with her wife Rebecca and their 11-year-old Chihuahua/Staffy Bindi, where she actively participates in the Inner West Council Local Democracy Transport Group and presides over the popular Facebook group, Electric Vehicles for Australia to create a more sustainable and resilient energy future:

Sarah on YouTube

@Electrify_this on Instagram

Sarah's Website

This season of the podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the free to download app that helps EV drivers search, plan, and pay for their charging.

Links in the show notes:

• Lord Howe Island - Cool Thing

Episode produced by Arran Sheppard at Urban Podcasts: https://www.urbanpodcasts.co.uk

(C) 2019-2024 Gary Comerford

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Mentioned in this episode:

Zap Map

The EV Musings Podcast is sponsored by Zapmap, the go-to app for EV drivers in the UK, which helps EV drivers search, plan, and pay for their charging. Zapmap is free to download and use, with Zapmap Premium providing enhanced features which include using Zapmap in-car on CarPlay or Android Auto and help with charging costs with both a pricing filter and 5% discount*"

Gary C:

Hi, I'm Gary and this is EV Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners. On the show today, we'll be going down under and looking at the EV market in Australia to see where they are on the EV adoption curve and whether we can learn anything from them.

Gary C:

Before we start, wanted to let you know that we're chatting with Zapmap on the show shortly. I'll be speaking to their top guide in charge of app development and we'll be discussing the way forward for Zapmap, what's coming up in the app. And I'll be putting a few pertinent questions to him about some of the things that we might like to see updated or improved in the app. So make sure you subscribe for that so you don't miss it.

Gary C:

Our main topic of discussion today is Australia. A little backstory, sitting comfortably. In a former time, i.e. last century, when my parents had a much larger say in what I did and where I lived, we moved to Australia. We lived in Brisbane. I went to school there and I still have friends there almost 50 years later. However, it's been a good 20 years since I went back to Australia and my only knowledge and understanding of their EV situation is what I've read on some of the news feeds to which I subscribe.

Now, as we're putting together an episode on the EV situation in the United States for later in the season, I want you to do something similar with Australia. So to frame all this, what do I actually know about the EV situation in Australia? Well, let's see. I know Australia has a relatively small population for its size. They have approximately 26 million people. So well under half the UK population on land that's over 60 times the size of England.

I know that what Europe calls long distance is nothing if you live in a country where your nearest neighbor can be 50 miles away. And I know that they recently kicked out a pro fossil fuel government and installed someone with a bit more of a leaning towards understanding climate change as a topic. So other than that, I don't know a lot really. I reckon I need to bring in an expert.

Sarah A:

My name is Sarah Aubrey and I'm actually a voice actor by trade, but I am also by night.an electrification and EV advocate.

Gary C:

Welcome to the show, Sarah. Thanks for joining us. Very happy to have you on board. Now you're based in Sydney and as you say, you've got a bit of an interest in electric cars and the whole electrification thing. So how's that going? Are there many EVs in Australia?

Sarah A:

Gary C:

We'll come back and talk about the media and the role they play in a little while. But first I want to talk about the actual cars themselves, the electric vehicles that are on sale. Now you've talked about Tesla and BYD. Who else plays in the Australian EV market?

Sarah A:

Well, MG. So that is quite popular as well. We actually have 10 new Chinese electric car brands coming to Australia in just the next six to 12 months. Xpeng have just launched the G6, which I think will be a massive seller. That's a very Tesla Y-like car, which I've test driven. Leap Motor have just launched. Deepal are just about to launch. Zika are just launching the Zika X. We've got, they're all coming, right? We've got Hyundai, we've got Kia. Kind of a ROK, GWM, quite small part of the market. But yeah, it's mostly Tesla and BYD would be the biggest players, I would say.

Gary C:

I think it's worth doing a bit of a compare and contrast. The UK has a quite interesting buying pattern for new cars. The majority of new cars are bought by fleets and companies, although salary sacrifice is starting to grow quite considerably here. Most UK EV sales and indeed internal combustion engine sales are in the used markets. Compare and contrast with Australia, please.

Sarah A:

Certainly companies are buying electric cars. Leasing is super popular. Probably the majority of cars being bought in Australia are leasing. We have one incentive left over from all the state incentives which have now kind of disappeared, which is a federal fringe benefits tax. So that's probably the biggest incentive in terms of company vehicles being purchased. That's huge. The problem with Australia primarily is that the number one type of car being sold in Australia is the ute or pickup truck. There are no EV pickup trucks and they tend to be also the medium and large SUVs. Now we only really have medium SUVs in Australia. It drives me crazy. I wish everyone was driving smaller cars, lighter cars personally, but that's just my vibe. But yeah, there's very soon there's going to be some utes coming to Australia.

BYD are about to launch the Shark which is going to be hybrid initially but there will be a full EV version of that. So in the next kind of 12 months I think it's going to get quite interesting when full electric utes come out especially we want ones with vehicle to load because they'll be so useful on work sites. But we also have tax incentives here or tax breaks in Australia that if you buy a pickup truck or a ute you get a massive you can ride it off a big tax write-off so that's one of the reasons why they're so popular on the roads.

Wildly infuriatingly. We are getting those giant American pickup trucks like Rams and the F-150s and you just see them on the roads more and more in the giant ranges and you're just like, ugh, why? So there's a bit of that going on as well. So it's tough for electric cars in that market because they just don't exist.

Gary C:

That whole ute thing will be interesting to keep an eye on. Over here we have the Maxxis T90 EV, which is about as close as you'd get to a ute. It's a little bit bigger, carries a few more people and it has a payload of around a thousand kilograms. So even if you've got the cars in Australia, you're not going to make much headway with EV adoption. Well, in Australia or any country without the charging infrastructure. So how's that going?

Sarah A:

We are wildly behind on that. We've been very good at fast charges, long distances, you know, especially on the coast, east coast of Australia and other places. Part of the fear that people have, which the press are also a part of, is that range anxiety. 80 % of Australians, 80 to 90 % of EV owners in Australia do charge at home. About 80 % of people can charge at home. Whereas in areas like where I live in the inner west of Sydney, 67 % of households cannot charge at home.

You know, it's wildly different in those inner suburbs of our cities. I personally don't own an electric car yet, ironically, even though I've been driving them, you know, for nearly a year, different ones almost every week. We need to see far more of that AC charging, that slower charging in order to really see uptake. There's near my house, for example, there's four free 22 kilowatt AC charges at the local shops. There's two deep 50 kilowatt DC charges there. And then down at the local IKEA just down the road, there's four DC charges and some more 22 kilowatt charges, but they're busy. They're really busy. Just on the down low between you and I. NOS council do allow you to run a cable out to your car if you apply for a footpath license. And now that's going to expire in June. They're sort of doing it as a bit of a guerrilla bureaucracy thing. You've got to have a cable cover over it. You've got to have public liability for your property. But to me personally, this is a massive game changer. And I am also haranguing my council about gully charging, kerbo charge, which obviously you would know all about because I think that's with also pole charging that will make it possible in areas like mine because there will never be enough pole charges with that proportion of people that cannot charge at home. So I think it's going to be really important to see a mix of everything we do really, really recently, the state government are going to be rolling out, they've rolled out funding for, for example, in the inner west of Sydney. It is a big electorate, about 162 charges, but it's massive. That's not enough charges, right? So yes, they're coming, but where I live, none of them are going to be in my area. They're all going to be in other parts of the electorate. you know, that's of no use to me really. So we definitely need to see more AC charging in our inner cities.

It's funny because the people who, majority of people who own electric cars in Australia can charge at home. 60 % of Australian drivers actually charge from their own rooftop solar, which would be something obviously different to the UK. We just love our solar. We have the biggest uptake of rooftop solar in the world and we love charging our things with that.

Gary C:

Love it! I don't think anyone's going to hold it against you that you don't have an EV. You're an active travel proponent. I know you're always posting videos with your Brompton out along some of the Sydney cycle tracks. So I think we can forgive you for that. Now, how's it looking out there for public charging tariffs? Is it expensive like it is here?

Sarah A:

Our rapid charges are about half the price of what yours are. So I had a little look at that. So you pay around 60 pence. Is that right? Roughly around that at least. That's a good one. I know I've seen 80 pence on some of those really shocking ones. Well, we pay on average around 60 cents.

That's like, that's about 31 pence. I know, look at your face. I know, so I looked it up and went, that's really unfair. Maybe it will become more expensive like that. I don't know. Those pole chargers that you were mentioning, the AC ones, they are actually quite expensive. They're 50 cents. So in terms of a slow charger versus a rapid charger, I don't know, is it really worth it? I mean, it's probably better for the battery, but I feel like they're a bit too expensive. If you're charging at home, hour time of use for example if it was peak it's 60 cents so we'd be like using a rapid charger which we wouldn't do if we could well which we can just our shoulder is about 50 cents and then no no sorry 40 cents and then if we charged overnight say for example it would be about 30 cents so yeah that's a lot less but we're still although i know that you do have people with ev plans in the uk you know there's companies here like ovo that offer things like

free charging between 11am and 2pm and if you're charging between midnight and 6am you'll pay about seven cents for charging. But I mean that's why I'm so keen on gully charging as well because like the UK I know that there is this issue of fairness. We all pay the same price at the petrol bowser and I know that that isn't the case when it comes to EV charging and it is about fairness. So just because you don't have a driveway shouldn't mean that I should be paying five times what it costs to have you know be able to charge overnight with an EV plan.

Gary C:

I know when I started driving EVs around six years back, big problem was charger reliability. Couple of problems. There weren't many on the road and those that you did come to might not always have worked well or they started and then they stopped or the payments couldn't be accepted. The apps didn't work or they locked your connector in the unit or whatever. Talk to me about reliability in Australian chargers, please.

Sarah A:

I think it's improving. I mean, we've certainly been putting in a lot of charges. We did have the issue with the Tritium chargers. So obviously they went bust. So any kind of repair of those could be, and they weren't that reliable. The biggest players I would say are EV, EVIE, Charge Fox and NRMA, which is like our AA version of that. They're all really, really good. And I feel like when you do report stuff, it does get fixed. And we have PlugShare, which is an app where you can report or check in and you take photos and you can show what it looks like. Which is pretty good actually.

I feel like certainly people still have experiences where things are out but I think there's a realisation that if we want this to really take off it needs to be reliable. We do have a pretty extensive Tesla network and all of the superchargers going in now, all of the cars can use it, not just Tesla vehicles and they're actually converting some of the other ones so that you know.

Those vehicles can use them too, not all of them, but some. And they're certainly putting more in. I actually think probably the least reliable and least, I don't know, amongst EV people, the ones that are least liked are actually the ones that are owned by the petrol companies like Ampol and BP Pulse. Because they're just not great. I don't know, they're just, like, there's no shelter even in the sun. Like, there's no shelter over there. They're where the visitor parking spots are. They're just not really well thought out.

And the biggest thing is, so there's one near me, it's a 75, they spread it out between the two charges. You've got 75 kilowatts. And the most I can get is like maybe 35 kilowatts out of one charger. And if someone plugs in next to you, goes down to five kilowatts is what you get. And the other one gets 15. And you're paying 60 cents. I'm like, get in the bin. I'm like, that is just not good enough. So I feel like the people who are actually EV charging companies are really good and do their best to really get things back up and running as quickly as possible. And if so, for example, there are issues with some cars aren't, aren't working with those charges, like a software issue, like the BYD Seal wasn't working with the Tesla superchargers, for example, and they fixed it. You know, they figured it out and they sorted it out. That sort of thing.

Gary C:

Yeah, it's pretty good. I know one of the things we've discussed here on the show on several occasions is the move from single unit charges to multi-unit charges and hubs. Now outside of the

Tesla installs, which I assume are four units or higher in the vast majority of cases. What's the situation when it comes to charging hubs?

Sarah A:

We've got, I don't know the exact figure, a couple of hundred at least now, I think. Wow. Yeah, no, we're nothing like that. I think they're realizing that they need to put more in when they do do it.But yeah, I don't think they, you know, I mean, I've seen those amazing ones where it's just the charges, right? And then it's a cafe and all those things. We're nowhere near that. I think we will get there. But at the moment, it's like, well, for example, between Sydney and Newcastle, we have the M1 and it's about a two hour car journey, two and a half hours up to Newcastle, very busy route. There's one twin servos either side of the road. They're finally going to put in some charges there.

I don't know how many they're going to put in, but I bet it won't be enough. But yeah, I feel like that maybe you might have four charges and you know, which is two and split. We do have a bit of a common problem as well that a lot of the charges that we'll put in had government money put into them and they have type one and two, like the Chademo and CCS2 charges. You're halving essentially. Fine for those Nissan Leaf drivers, the few of them that are left, but it's like, no. So yeah, some of those are starting to be converted over as well to just add to what we need, which is more. But yeah, we're nowhere near like the UK.

Gary C:

Now I mentioned in the intro that your driving profile in Australia is different to the UK. The longest distance we can do is probably, think, 840 miles, lands into John O'Groats, which nobody really does unless they're doing it for a dare or for charity, or in the case of podcast guest, Kevin Booker, for a world record. But because of the geographic nature of Australia, it's a much bigger country. It's going to be one of those places where you go, yeah, I'll go down to see the neighbor and the neighbor's 50 miles away. And that just doesn't happen in most places in the rest of the world.

Sarah A: It's a very interesting one because the average Australian drives 36 kilometres a day. So let's start there. I know that people think, and certainly in the comment section of my social media accounts, that everyone needs to tow something across the Nullarbor daily that is not actually the case and we are concentrated heavily upon the coast, the east coast mostly of Australia. sure, and you know, I know people who have driven Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Brisbane, if you're crazy, but you do need to stop. It's hours and hours and hours. I think those places along the coast in particular, they have put in a lot of charges and I think still if you are going to be doing long distance driving in Australia, it's a hundred percent probably best to buy a Tesla because for all that supercharging network you are going to be absolutely set and you might rock up in a different car and be like, that doesn't work with a different car, those Tesla chargers. So certainly that is a reliable, known, safe network. Sure, there are big black spots in the middle of the country, but those people aren't really driving there. I think that's why, I mean, a lot of the people who do actually buy regionally, they charge from their rooftop solar and they're just. you know, if they've got long range cars, great. Interestingly, the people buying cars in Australia, I think recently there was an article in the ABC that talked about it was actually largely people in the outer suburbs of the cities, the people who are doing all that driving, which they're doing a lot of driving to get into the city or wherever they're going. They're the ones who are actually buying. Then it was inner city people, but it was like, you know, much higher proportion people of outer suburbs, but it was still something like 17 % of people regionally in that list.

So there's definitely people buying cars out there, but it's just, it's again, Utes, for example, would be very popular further out regionally, but we don't have electric Utes. I think that is kind of partly why we are seeing the hybrid sales we are because the press do an excellent job of making people scared about range anxiety and the charging network. And it's like the only people I hear complain about the charging network are people who do not own electric cars.

Gary C:

If we continue trying to work out what the situation is in Australia versus the UK, we need to talk about the charger payment situation. Over here, we have mandated contactless payment, but there's also RFID, apps, QR codes, roaming services. What's the state of the art for charger payment in Australia?

Sarah A:

Mostly it's all still app-based. You pick your charger and do that stuff. And every company has their own app. They're starting now to roll out tap and pay because the government's going, you need to do that to make it simpler, which is great. I mean, we also have RFID cards for a lot of the like the charge Fox, EV, BP Pulse. You can use a tap and pay your RFID card. So I actually use that more than anything because I just don't want to get caught out with, you if you're somewhere where there's no reception, but yeah, they're very much introducing now tap and pay.

I think even EV are doing something like, you you rock up and it's like the Tesla where you can just, you don't do anything. It's like, there's all sorts of things going on, but yeah, it's recognized that this whole mess of like the UK was probably a few years back that you're using a million apps just doesn't work. And people don't get told how to use that stuff. I was using a charger in Newcastle recently and a woman rocked up in a Kia EV9 and she'd literally just driven from the dealership. And she just went to this charger. It was an NRMA charger and she didn't know how to use it. She didn't know how to do anything. And I had to walk her through downloading the apps that she'd need. And, you know, she had a couple because her friend had an EV, but she didn't have them all. And then walked her through how to use it. And she had no idea and the dealership just let her leave with no clue. And I was like, good one. So I think if, and it had a contactless thing there, but it was for the RFID card. So she's trying to use her credit card and it's not working. So that just doesn't set a good precedent for people.

You just want to make it easy, right? We basically are behind you by, I don't know how many years, but it's probably like four or five years or something. Like we are useless, but we were held back by the previous government. Simple, plain and simple. They were absolutely anti-EV, which meant the poor people who just, 10 people who went out and bought Teslas were having a good time and, you know, using the networks and they were thinking it was great. But it's wildly changed in two years. It is amazing and it's gone from literally 2 % of the market to 8-9 % of the market. And now of course it's sort of plateauing a little bit and now it's a little bit sort of up and down and that sort of thing. And immediately the press is like, it's faltering and slowly and it was literally exponential doubling every year. And it's like, I can't keep doing that straight away. But I mean, you know, obviously as well we're in a cost of living crisis. So new car sales, all that jazz. I see more and more electric cars on the road every single day.

Gary C:

Government intervention is often critical when it comes to a mandate such as this. Now Australia went through a government change recently, couple of years ago. How's the new government doing? Is there money in there for things like charges and grants?

Sarah A:

There's definitely been money given for charges. As I said, the state government have, it's not just my local electorate that that's across the state. They've been, and then they're to do another round. So they, they recognise that we need to get ahead of this.

And as I said, the federal government, there's the fringe benefits tax exemption. We did have state incentives, like there was a $3,000 towards an EV and Queensland, it was a $6,000 incentives, which they only just wound back. I think every state now has stopped that, but electric cars have dropped in price here. You know, back then a Tesla was 65, Model 3 was 65 grand. It's now 55 grand. The Model Y is 56 grand. So 61, 62 drive away.

The MG4 just got slashed in price to $31,000. So they've had a great sale. I know, your face. Usually the scene's face. It was really good. The jaw did drop open. So $31,000 drive away. I actually know someone who just got the 64 Excite for $33,500 brand new. So I think, this is my prediction, I think we're going to see a bit of a price war amongst these Chinese brands about who's going to win. right? Who's gonna stick around, who's gonna win the prize. So I think MG goes, ooh, all these brands are about to come to Australia, let's just sell all that stock. And it was, know, 23, 24 stock. I mean, 31 grand, like 39.90 for a brand new 350 kilometre LFP battery. Great, I really like that car. The driving dynamics of it are great. Nothing special, of course, but, but for someone buying an electric car and a new car, that's less than a Corolla. It's pretty good.

Gary C:

I don't think it'll come as a surprise to you, Sarah, but the single biggest block that's slowing down EV adoption in the UK is the sheer amount of misinformation. It goes from paltering - the selective use of truthful information to misinform or mislead - through to ignorance of the facts, not knowing what people are talking about all the way to out and out lies. Now, a lot of this is social media, but there's a chunk of it coming from the mainstream media too.

Sarah A:

Well, I do apologize for Rupert Murdoch from every Australian. We do apologize for him and the chaos in the world that he has sown. Yeah. Look, the mainstream media here, a huge proportion of it. I mean, I guess the biggest difference between Britain and Australia is that we are a massive export nation of fossil fuels. We're the second biggest exporter of gas in the world. We also export a hell of a lot of coal. There are, shall we say, certain people in the country that own certain media organizations that have their own feelings because they have a lot of money invested in those areas. Certain parts of the press are not amenable to electric cars or renewables. We've actually got a very big anti-renewable push right now. In fact, we have, they call themselves an activist group. They're called advance, but it's dark money and it's billionaires. A lot of money from billionaires who have interests in fossil fuels fund them to do anti-renewable stuff.

A lot of anti-solar and especially anti-solar at the moment, which is a bit weird. They've kind of missed the boat on that one. And anti-wind and anti-electric car stuff. And they're very open about their mandate. So we've got that. We've got online disinformation, just the constant classic, heebie-sabaab for the environment. What about the children in the mines in Africa? You know, they can't go the distance. They're only good for cities. The batteries last 10 years. All blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the same stuff, same stuff.

We get all that and it filters through. But also we get like not just those articles like you would get with the sun. Like we, you know, we get a bit of that stuff, but we also have what I call slightly irresponsible ignorant journalism. for example, the other day I watched the ABC, which is a national broadcaster. Just this journalist talking about electric cars and you know, the Chinese issue potentially that they're spying on us or whoo, and all that kind of thing. And then literally just off the top of, you know, they're just going, yes, but Australians love big cars. Well, they love big cars because they're sold the idea of big cars by advertising companies. So let's start there. And, you know, people are worried about the charging infrastructure and, you know, they, you know, all the things, the tropes, and they just say it like it's fact. And I'm like, that's not fact. You're just saying it because you've heard it a million times. And the footage even that they used of the electric car being charged was a Nissan Leaf. I'm like, come on, what am I looking at here? And then the journalist, wait for it, the journalist goes, yeah, I only sat in a Chinese electric car for the first time yesterday. I'm like, you're doing a report on this. What is happening right now? This is our national broadcaster. I was like, that was one of the worst pieces of journalism and so irresponsible, but that is normal. And it's quite shocking.

So... Look, the only good thing is that there are places like a group I'm an admin of in Australia called Electric Vehicles for Australia on Facebook is that it's a 30 something thousand group that people come to to find actual information. Or they follow my Instagram or TikTok, electrify this if you want to follow me. You know, where I talk about electric cars and, you know, I review cars, e-bikes and urbanism and my house. people are hungry and curious and I don't know that it completely filters through and pushes people away from the idea. But I do actually think the thing that will convert people to, in a very long-winded way, two electric cars will be none of the press. It won't be any of that. It won't even be the anti-stuff. It'll be the Smiths next door or Joe Bloggs, Joneses next door, Got an EV. They're saving so much money on fuel. My god.They're charging it from their solar, like it costs them nothing. And then they're going to drive it or sit in it and they're going to experience instant talk and go, I'm in. That's it. mean, that's what's how it's going to happen. And I don't know if the UK is like that, but that's how it's really, you have to get people into the cars. That's the secret. asked Sarah for final words in this discussion about EV adoption in Australia. Look, we're a bit behind, but we will catch up. Have faith. We are trying, and you know, people like me are trying and I will be buying electric car very soon. I don't know. I'm really happy being able to watch the UK market because it gives me hope and I can see the ups and downs and I can see all that stuff. I know, mean, your secondhand market is doing quite well, right?

So yeah. And to me, all those things, I see everything that happening in the UK as what's going to happen here. I think that that chain, you know how I said we're quite far behind. I think that's going to get smaller and smaller, the difference between how far behind we are, especially with all these Chinese cars coming in. think if you and I had a conversation again in a year, I think it'd be really interesting with all those brands being in Australia, seeing what's happened here because I just have this feeling it's going to be a price war and the only people who are going to benefit is us.

Gary C:

A couple of takeaways from this discussion. Australia is a pretty much the same path as the UK. But as Sarah mentioned, there are a number of years behind. They're benefiting, of course, from getting a lot more longer range, higher spec cars later on in their adoption timeline than we did here in the UK. Chinese made electric vehicles figure quite highly when it comes to Australian cars, which makes sense both from a proximity point of view. It's easier to get Chinese cars into Australia than shipping them around the world to Europe. And from a governmental point of view, Australia has no internal car manufacturing industry, so to speak.

So the government isn't falling into the trap that a lot of other governments are doing of putting tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports. The recent change of government did a lot to increase the uplift of EV cars since then as well. The thing Sarah talked about that I find quite interesting is the charging tariffs. There is of course a differential between home and public charging as there is just about everywhere, but that differential isn't quite as large as it is in places like the UK.

I suspect this is more to do with the fact that their DNOs or energy company equivalents aren't adding as many additional costs into the charge point operators as ours do, things like capacity charges, high increases in standing charges, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I absolutely love this conversation with Sarah. She knows the stuff when it comes to the Australian EV market. And I hope to get her back on the show in an upcoming season to talk about how things have progressed and moved forward there. So what about you? Did you enjoy this episode? Do want to see and hear more from other countries about how they're doing EV adoption? If you do, let me know. Info at evmusings.com.

This season we're looking at raising the awareness of carbon literacy with our listeners. And one way we're doing that is with a carbon fact as read by carbon literacy trainer, Anne Snellson.

Anne S:

Did you know that using 100 % renewable energy will cost less than half our current fossil fuel powered one? Oxford University researchers say the world could save over 10 trillion pounds by moving more quickly towards net zero. So let's do all we can to achieve that goal.

Gary C:

It successfully supplied a high percentage of renewable energy and experienced no power interruptions during its operation, which is fantastic. I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show. It was put together this week with the help of Sarah Aubrey from Electrify This. Find all her details in the show notes and many thanks to her for her time. If you have any thoughts, comments, criticisms, or other general messages to pass on to me, I can be reached at info at efemusings.com.

On the socials I'm on Twitter or X at Musings EV. I'm also on Instagram at EV Musings where I post short videos and podcast extracts regularly. Why not follow me there? Thanks to everyone who supports me through Patreon on a monthly basis and through coffee.com on an ad hoc one. If you enjoyed this episode, why not buy me a coffee? Go to coffee.com slash EV Musings and you can do just that. K-O dash F-I dot com slash EV Musings takes Apple pay too.

Regular listeners will know about my two ebooks, so you've gone electric and so you've gone renewable. They're 99p each or equivalent and you can get them on Amazon. Check out the links in the show notes for more information as well as a link to my regular EV Musings newsletter and associated articles. Now I know you're probably driving or walking or jogging right now as you listen, but if you can remember and you enjoyed this episode, drop me a review in iTunes please, it really helps me out.

If you've reached this part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you. Why not let me know you've got to this point by tweeting me at Musings EV with the words, G'day mate, hashtag if you know you know, nothing else. Thanks as always to my co-fan Simon, you know he's a big fan of the old NFL, loves a bit of the gridiron, he's more than happy to watch it on Channel 4 when it was a thing a few years ago. But then Sky Sports came in, made a huge offer for the rights and bye bye Super Bowl coverage.

Of course he's furious with Sky for doing this, but it seems he's not the only one.

Sarah A:

Well, I do apologise for Rupert Murdoch, from every Australian.

Gary C:

Thanks for listening. Bye!