Australia's electric vehicle sales more than doubled year on year and now account for one in four new cars sold, with an electric car being sold every 100 seconds, the Electric Vehicle Council's 10th State of Electric Vehicles Report finds. Last month EVs outsold petrol and diesel cars for the first time, and the number of electric vehicles on Australian roads has passed 600,000. Nearly 200 electric models are now available and some EVs are approaching price parity with petrol versions, with a few retailing for under $20,000, the report says. Uptake this year has been strongest among suburban commuters, led by Tarneit west of Melbourne, and incentives such as the fringe benefit tax exemption have supported sales growth. Rising fuel prices after the February conflict with Iran and shipping disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz boosted the shift to plug-in cars, the report notes. Major challenges remain: EVs still make up about 3 percent of the roughly 21 million vehicles on Australian roads, charging infrastructure is not growing fast enough, and reaching national emission targets would require about 5 million battery electric cars by the middle of the next decade.
