Victoria is now the first state in the world to introduce an electric car tax, in some ways decentivising ownership of an electric car thanks to a per-kilometre charge. It has been slammed by the Australian Greens party.
“Labor’s EV tax comes at a time when transport is our biggest growing source of emissions in Victoria and we are lagging behind the rest of the world in the uptake of electric vehicles,” says Victorian Greens spokesperson for transport, Sam Hibbins MP in a statement.
Making its bill official this week, the Labour Government currently led under Daniel Andrews has sealed the deal on the Electric Vehicle Tax.
Effective from July 1 2021, electric vehicle and zero-emissions (say, hydrogen) owners are required to pay 2.5 cents per kilometre travelled, and plug-in electric owners will pay 2.0 cents per kilometre travelled. This equates to around $300-$500 when travelling an average of 10,000 to 15,000km per year.
Electric vehicle owners will still need to pay normal vehicle registration.
The new Victorian EV tax is expected to generate $30 million over four years. The Victorian government has previously provided a subsidy for new EV owners who bought a vehicle after May 2 but the offer is capped to 20,000 buyers and only applies to vehicles that are priced under $68,740.
The contentious tax on the emerging clean-car industry was already met with criticism despite its duty to fill the hole left by electric vehicles not contributing to petrol taxes. Chief among critics is the Australian Greens, which slammed the new tax. Labour is yet to publish a media release since passing the bill in the upper house with the support of cross-benchers.
“Passing the ‘worst electric vehicle policy in the world’ will now make Victoria a global laughing stock, and we will continue to be a laggard in EV uptake,” says Hibbins MP.
“This is climate vandalism in the midst of a climate crisis.
“This was a big test for the upper house, and they failed. Rather than stand on the side of climate action and the Victorian people, they decided to roll over and stand for nothing.
“The Greens will move to repeal this backwards tax on clean air.”
Good idea; why should EV owners continue to use the infrastructure for free? At 2.5 cents EV owners are still making about half the contribution made by fossil fuel users which is about 5 cents per kilometre (for a car) with excise and GST.
Well Scottie of marketing is happy for the disincentive.
It’s the Government of Victoria tax
Maybe if we were as close to Kirribilli as Macquarie Street is there would be more offsetting ‘pork’ to go around.
Whatcha think Scottie ?
They still pay registration so where is the issue. If they want to charge everyone by the km take the tax off fuel and charge everyone the same.
Victoria leads the world taxing emission free vehicles.
A road use tax and registration must be charged for all vehicles driving on public roads.
If EV is best then people will buy them.
Rather than promoting measures to combat climate change, Australia is choosing the opposite direction. Lost for words……
Most of the electricity in Australia is generated by fossil fuelled power stations, the so called renewables are unreliable and intermittently supply not a lot.
So EV is charged with coal, gas and diesel generator sources in Australia.
God damn British and their need to re use the same names over and over.
I live in Victoria, I’m shopping for an electric car and my first thoughts were what the hell eff you Victoria.
Then I saw the .au and I laughed at myself.
I hope you mainly drive in the city and suburbs, and are wealthy enough to afford an EV that will cost around 50 per cent more than the same size car with internal combustion engine power.
The price difference would buy a lot of petrol and maintenance services before break even is reached, many years before that is achieved.
EV will probably become competitive one day, then again Hybrid is a better option for Australians.
EV must succeed in a free market capitalist system economy market, on merit compared to the competitors.
The idea of subsidizing Zero Emissions Vehicles with tax breaks and refunds is too make them more affordable in order to meet global emissions commitments. Tax breaks are desired because they don’t impact as much as distributed funding.
The reason most free governments are doing so is to lessen the impact of climate change. Not because hipsters and tree huggers demand it. The real motivation being that droughts, fires and rising sea levels will cost billions more.
Most governments have goals of 30-40% of new sales ZEVs by the next decade or so. Australia has nothing like that in place. Our lack of policy sends mixed messages. Chargepoint has pulled out of Australia because of a lack of policy. Seeding new industries, technologies and infrastructure is essential to modern democratic economies.
The Internet is probably a good example of this. This talk of fair share and proving itself free market viable would have killed the net off. It was government subsidised for decades.
EV and clean energy is the future. Climate change is real. The Australian government has no clear policy or plan. We are positioning ourselves to be dead last in these new technologies. We are certainly dead last in emissions control amongst first world countries.
Argue the world is flat, the real fact is, in democracy you get the government you deserve, not the one you want.