by Chris Becker
Well here it is! An electric car for the masses. The Tesla Model 3 was launched this week in the US, heralding a new era in electric vehicles. Big usable range, low life-of-vehicle cost that makes it cheaper than internal combustion vehicles and of course, zero emissions.
So when is it coming to Australia? And will anyone buy it here? Or will it be a failure?
From The New Daily:
Tesla founder Elon Musk announced in a series of Twitter messages on Monday that the Model 3 has “passed all regulatory requirements for production two weeks ahead of schedule”, and that the first cars are expected to “begin rolling off the line on Friday”.
Musk noted that 100 Model 3 cars would be produced in August, before increasing exponentially to 1500 by September and no less than 20,000 produced per month by December.
However, excited Australian customers have been warned to lower their expectations, as Tesla’s accessibility across the country is “poor”.
The Model 3 will retail for $US35,000 ($A45,700) but American customers can receive a $10,000 subsidy – bringing the base model price down to $US25,000 ($A35,900) – for buying an electric car, while Australians cannot.
And if you can afford the new model you could be waiting more than a year to receive it, with about 400,000 pre-orders already placed in the US, Business Insider reported.
But for Australians, the wait will be even longer with the production of right-hand drive models beginning nine months after the initial Model 3 release, Musk tweeted.
It’s estimated delivery for new reservations will occur in late 2018.
Let’s not kid ourselves cost will be the major factor with the success or not of the Model 3 in Australia. Why?
Basically because this country is the exact opposite of Norway. Watch this video (Ive fast forwarded to the salient bits, where my jaw literally dropped)
For those who can’t watch at home, Norway has set itself up to be a carbon neutral country in terms of how it both produces and consumes energy, which includes massive incentives for its people to purchase electric vehicles in the following ways:
- 99% of its power comes from hydroelectricity (i.e an unlimited cheap energy source)
- free parking, free express lane usage and free city entry tolls for electric cars
- free vehicle registration fee for electric cars
- income tax deduction for using an electric car
- electric vehicle manufacturers do not pay sales tax
- free chargers for electric cars on major city streets
- all financed by the Norway sovereign wealth fund
What does Australia do? Well, apart from not having a sovereign wealth fund to help finance these initiatives as part of a long term strategic goal to transition to a carbon neutral transportation/power system, it does almost the exact opposite:
- some of the most expensive electricity prices in the world, with continuing out of control inflation due to total mismanagement of the energy market. SA is already the most expensive in the world and the eastern seaboard catching up with ca. 20-30% increases predicted this year…..!
- while having average insolation (solar radiation capture) of 4kWH per square meter, the highest in the developed world, yet the least utilised for solar power.
- 73% of power production is fossil fuels, mainly coal
- luxury car tax applies to most electric vehicles (due to high upfront cost of battery) above $75,000
- some subsidising of registration fees for electric/hybrid vehicles (around 20-30%)
- the dreaded Australia tax, where everything bought overseas somehow costs twice as much even with a higher currency
- no charging stations provided by government (Tesla has installed a few Superchargers) and no solar incentives to produce your own energy at home
In other words, the complete opposite of what a progressive, rich, intelligent nation should be doing in the 21st century. Pick the exact opposite insurance plan to what a thoughtful country would do when presented with the near certain crisis of climate change, where carbon emissions may have to drop to near nothing. And that’s what your politicians have decided to do.
Fucking nuts.
Beyond the long term thinking – something the Lucky Country has never had a surplus of – and the huge disincentives from the Federal and various state governments, it all comes down to the individual car-buyer. And like those who install PV cells on their roof or solar hot water, it becomes a basic cost-benefit analysis.
And it all boils down to electricity prices and on a very stretched household budget as wages stagnate and purchasing power falls does it make sense to swap the Camry or Mazda 3? Only those with mammoth discretionary incomes will make the choice to purchase a car that will probably cost $57,000AUD driveaway (according to RenewEconomy’s Alex Shoolman for the base model) – and most of those folks who have been bitten by the electric bug have bought Model S’s or X’s…
The Tesla Model 3 will fail here in Australia because why would you bother buying an electric car, when charging it will cost about the same or more as filling it up with petrol?
MB Member Myne has done the calculations:
At 60kwh and 100% efficiency, that’s still around $13.2 for a “full tank”.
If you’re assuming identical range, $70 for a full tank, and a $30k petrol car vs $13 in electricity and $60k for the Tesla Model 3 you have to “fill the Tesla up” 526 times to break even on the purchase price and fuel price difference.
An average tank of fuel lasts… let’s say 5 days. So you’re filling up 73 times a year. So the Tesla would take 7.2 years to start to become cheaper than the petrol.
Naturally these sums change if you’re buying the cheapest petrol car available @ $12k.You’d probably never break even.
And that’s a damn shame, because of any nation that should have an almost exclusive electric powered passenger AND heavy goods vehicle fleet, it should be Australia.
Disclosure: I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk, and when/if he takes SpaceX public, I will be buying shares and/or tickets hand over fist. My super fund sometimes owns shares in the publicly listed Tesla (TSLA), but currently does not have a holding.