Misinformation about electric vehicles are widely accepted says a new study, even by people who own one. What’s going on?
The study by media outlet The Conversation looked at 9 EV myths in Australia, the US, Germany & Austria and found similar attitudes. For instance, most believed electric vehicles are more likely to catch fire than petrol cars, don’t help battle climate change or emit ‘electromagnetic fields’ that can harm health. All wrong of course.
Does it matter? Yes it does because people who believe these myths are less likely to buy an electric car or even support electric vehicle policies in general. That’s not good for any of us.
Luckily the world still seems to be making the switch to greener cars. Last year over 17M electric cars were sold, or 20% of all new car sales, a jump of 25% on the previous year.
3 markets matter the most. China of course dominates and sales keep rising there—almost half of China’s car sales were electric in 2024—but while US sales have kept going up the overall trend was weaker this year as it also was in Europe which saw EV sales stagnate as subsidies were phased out or reduced.
The rest of the world is also buying in, but Australia, I’m sad to say, isn’t doing its bit. Sales of battery electric vehicles make up just 5.9% of the total car market here despite the Federal Chamber of Automotive industries predicting in 2023 that they’d be 14% by now.
There’s been a lot of soul searching for why Aussies appear to have soured on electric cars. Price and choice used to be big reasons, but the cost of electric cars keeps falling and we now have something like 90 EV models to pick from, including 6 by the popular Chinese-owned BYD, which is aggressively expanding here.
I still think consumers are worried about convenience and its true that the charging infrastructure has lagged here. Government and industry need to fix that as soon as possible.
Electric mobility is still one of the most important things we can do to hit a net zero economy. Australia is seen as a technological innovator and has made big climate promises, but we need to get electric cars moving if we don’t want to be left behind by the rest of the world.
And of course copper is helping. It’s crucial to EV growth, used in the electric motors, batteries, inverters, wiring and in charging stations.
Cheers, John Fennell.