National Electric Vehicle Strategy: consultation paper

I believe greater consideration should be given to ensuring that we encourage EV uptake as a share of cars and personal private vehicles, rather than just "Encourage rapid increase in demand for EVs". While the transition from petrol and diesel vehicles to EVs on the road is a positive one, there are still overall concerns that EVs have in terms of their net impacts on the environment, given how carbon intensive they can be to manufacture, how they rely on grids that are carbon intensive, and how recent scientific studies are finding that car tires are massive contributors to waste, particularly for microplastics (https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions).

As such, real green solutions involve promoting alternative modes of transit such as Active Transport and Public Transport, freeing up public space and manufacturing, reducing poverty, and promoting efficient energy uses. Therefore, we should amend the objectives to read as "Encourage rapid increase in demand for EVs as a share of the personal vehicle market".

Furthermore, the objective to "Establish the systems and infrastructure to enable the rapid uptake of EVs." should be amended to read as "Establish the systems and infrastructure to enable increased EV uptake, whilst establishing infrastructure for increased Public and Active Transport", to meet the concerns raised.

If other countries continue to increase their domestic markets share of EVs, then it is natural that without updated Emissions Standards, Australia will be sent worse quality, less efficient, and more polluting cars. Doing so would be a failure, however, that does not mean that countries with accelerated uptakes of EVs do not face other issues with transport emissions, pollution, and connection. As such, a holistic approach would deal with the problems of our car-centric design, as well as addressing the current dominance of petrol cars on the road.

Grams of CO2 per person kilometre travelled would be an effective way to measure climate-related goals and objectives, as it both underlines the need to reach deep and rapid reductions in carbon emissions for our national grid for EVs to be truly effective (https://sensibletransport.org.au/project/transport-and-climate-change/)

The Commonwealth and the State Governments may be able to reach an agreement to promote greatly reduced registration fees or rebates for EVs (Possibly a 50% discount).
The commonwealth should remove plug-in hybrids from the current tax discount arrangements, and invest that increased revenue either on plug in chargers in regional and inaccessable areas or infrastructure on alternative and cleaner modes of transport.

Smarter emissions standards should be a priority and should be rolled out over the next 2 finaicial years if possible, given the financial benifts they will deliver, and how industry is already preparing for thm.
The Commonwealth should consider announcing an end date for the sale of petrol and deasel cars, as even before going into effect, such an annoucement will have a chilling effect on the price of EVs, and will drive up demand.

As people by a car, including the price of how much the individual consumer is likely to spend on petrol over a yearly basis in promoting the vehicle price may make individuals more inclined to drive EVs

Yes.

In effect, yes.

It would be an effective, however more effort should be taken to ensure that heavy vehicle classes have less of a presence on the road, and work for things such as freight is increasingly done by freight.

The Commonwealth should look towards amending it's Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program to effectively incentivise the amount of EVs that would operate under such a project, while also ensuring that problem regions dealing with pollution and emissions (Maribyrnong) have access to effective standards first, as a way to adress community concerns.

Introducing a standardised set of marketing/branding regime to be featured at the point of sale for EVs or vehicles meeting a certain standard would be an effective way to assure suppliers that there will be a way they can be certain consumers looking for EVs.

The Customs Tariff Proposal No.5 2022 should also be withdrawn and reissued to remove plug-in hybrids so that benefits from tariff reductions are restricted to zero emissions vehicles.

Governments must actively promote and ensure that e-bikes, e-scooters, and motorbikes make up a larger share of the transport sector. The Commonwealth should work on implementing a universal standard to the approach governments take towards E-Scooters and similar devices, as action in some cities and states (Most notably Victoria) can result in confusion, enforcement costs, and drivers more likly to rely on petrol vehicles.

The Commonwealth should also consider amending and repealing the mandatory bike helmet laws introduced for e-bikes and similar devices, which as several studies have shown, acts as an inhibiting factor in the public deciding to ride, and is not present in countries with high rates of cycling.

Imported second-hand vehicles should be included in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Electric Car Discount)
Bill 2022, assuming that complies with the relevant Australian safety standards. This can be done with the saving from removing plug-in hybrids from the bill.

The ACCC should be actively asked to monitor the market of second hand EVs as they are introduced into the Autralian market, while ensuring they have the powers to deliver effective penalties for breaches and can make effective breach notices to the public.

The Government should comission increased funding towards developments in Bi-directional charging, or the field of allowing EV batteries to function as home batteries for domestic purposes. Furthermore, the Commonwealth should consider broadening the remit of the to-be-unvieled National Reconstruction Fund to include the production of domestic lithium batteries. Furthermore, this fund should include manufacturing for betteries for electric buses.

The Commonwealth should consider introducing a jobs, industry and innovation fund would support industry research and development in areas such as software development, vehicle-to-home charging and battery recycling.

Yes.

Road User Charges should be passed now, while measures are effectively taken to reduce the initial cost barriors to the EV market. Road User Charges will provide an actively reliable, progressive, reasonable, and environmentally responsible source of revenue that is notably less cumbersome that the Fuel Excise. GIven States are currently jumping on this reform already, the Commonwealth ought either propose a national standard, or override the State taxes with their own tax, and redistribute the revenue to the states.

Standards need to be finalised and enforced for charging ports to ensure that all chargers are compatable and that drivers are not disadvantaged for somethig out of their control. Advertising standards and promotional insignias should be rolled out on a national level utalising Australia's Competition laws, ensuring that consumers across all of Australia have access to the same type of information as they buy a new vehicle, and these logos become common knowledge.

Greatly increase the Commonwealth's contribution in investment for Public and Active transport, including in promoting electrification of PT networks and new routes to promote forms of transport that can be accessed by all consumers.
The Commonwealth should consider taking back parts of the domestic energy grid into Public Ownership, or at least Australian Ownership, given how extreme the revenue raised from the private ownership of powerlines and the grid is, and how little competition is in the market (https://ieefa.org/resources/no-justification-10-billion-monopoly-power-bill-shock)

I wish to remain anonymous, however and providing image to an identity document to prove I am a real person who is interested in this field.