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Electricvehicles set for range parity with petrol cars by 2024

Electric vehicles will have the samerange as traditional cars by 2024, new research on Wednesday predicted, aforecast that would help dramatically increase sales of zero-emission vehicles.

Demandfor EVs in Australia has been curtailed by prohibitively high costs, a lack ofgovernment incentives, and concerns about their range

But Bell Resources said it now expects that within the next twoyears, new EVs in Australia will be able to travel the same distance as aninternal combustion engine type before requiring recharging.

“Foryears now, Australians have felt that the gap between EV and traditionalinternal combustion engine range hasn’t passed the pub test, however, this willno longer be the case in two years’ time,” said Mark Avery, chief executive officerat Bell Resources.

“We’realso predicting that EVs will reach cost parity in Australia by 2030 – thiswill significantly boost uptake as well as the need for charginginfrastructure.”

The improving range will coincidewith significantly cheaper electric cars as supply increases, and BellResources expects EVs to make up 30 per cent of all new passenger and lightcommercial sales in Australia by 2030.

Shouldthe forecast materialise, Australia is on course for a rapid transition toelectric cars – a trend that threatens to uproot the local automotive industryand create opportunities for Australian companies.

Spurredby state incentives, Australia has seen solid growth in EV sales over the lastyear. Data published earlier this week showed there were 20,655 EVs sold inAustralia last year, up 6,900 from 2020. New EVs accounted for 1.95 per cent ofall new car sales – still well short of traditional petrol-guzzlers – but upfrom 0.78 per cent of new sales in 2020.

Australiaalso continues to lag well behind Europe and to a lesser extent the UnitedStates.

EVsmake up more than 11 per cent of cars in Western Europe, and registrations forthe zero-emission cars surpassed diesel types for the first time in December,data from the Schmidt Automotive Research showed.

Inthe US, sales are at about 3 per cent of total market share, but this isexpected to grow quickly as President Biden places reducing emissions as a keypriority.

Theincreased demand for EVs has already boosted several Australian companies, whichhave positioned themselves to capitalise.

Tritium,a manufacturer of electric vehicle fast charging systems that last month listedon Nasdaq, is targeting an early opening to its US manufacturing site that oncebuilt will more than triple the company’s capacity.

Carbon Revolution – a lightweight wheel maker – last week said sales had more than doubled inthe last three months as a result of demand for EVs.

Lighterwheels increase the range of EVs, and Carbon Revolution has struck supply dealswith General Motors.