Interesting reading.
Nissan plans to be 'trigger' for electric vehicle boom
By Cole Latimer
5 October 2018 — 12:00am
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Motor company Nissan plans to make one-third of all its vehicles sold in Australia electric by the mid-2020s, despite the lack of subsidies or government incentives for consumers to switch to EVs.
The Japanese company announced its plan during the launch of its latest fully electric vehicle, the second generation of the Leaf.
Nissan vice-president for electric vehicles, Daniele Schillaci, said the company wants to be the catalyst for EV uptake in Australia.
Photo: Supplied
Currently, the federal government has no subsidies or incentives for Australians to buy electric vehicles or build charging infrastructure, as opposed to Europe, China and the United States where governments are actively working to boost EV numbers.
“Things always happen when you have a trigger, and we think Nissan can be the trigger in Australia,” Nissan executive president for zero-emission vehicles and batteries, Daniele Schillaci, told Fairfax Media.
Earlier this week, Denmark announced it would ban the sale of all petrol and diesel cars from 2030 and hybrid vehicles from 2035, while China aims to make 10 per cent of all cars in the country electric.
In Australia, state governments and vehicle clubs have built some public EV chargers, with Victoria pledging $1 million to build the world’s third ‘ultra-fast’ charging stations around the state.
In Norway, nearly half of the country's EV charging infrastructure is supplied by Australian firm Tritium.
Globally, Mazda has pledged to make all its cars
either fully or partially electric by 2030, while in Australia Jaguar plans to
invest up to $4 million to build more charging stations ahead of the launch of its own EVs.
However, this has done little boost Australia’s low EV numbers, which are forecast to hit 1 million by 2030, in a best-case scenario.
A survey by Kantar TNS, carried out with the launch of the vehicle, found 74 per cent of Australians said limited infrastructure was one of the reasons they hadn’t bought an electric car.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), as of June, there were only 783 public electric vehicle chargers around the country, 69 of which were fast chargers.
Australia still faces the issue of a lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Photo: Supplied
In order to boost the numbers, Nissan has partnered with JET Charge to roll out electric vehicle charging infrastructure at 89 of its dealerships across the country and make one-third of all its cars sold electric. It also wants to work with local governments to increase the number of charging stations.
The former head of the Electric Vehicle Council, Ivan Slavich, said the lack of infrastructure was the main problem for the poor uptake of EVs.
Mr Slavich said that with fewer charging stations it limited how far cars could travel, creating “range anxiety”.
Federal Treasurer – and former energy minister – Josh Frydenberg has previously
labelled this anxiety and lack of infrastructure as key stumbling blocks for EVs.
Mr Schillaci said Nissan's Leaf had a range of 270 kilometres and had been designed to act as a mobile battery, providing power back into the grid.
Nissan claims the 2018 Leaf has the world’s first purpose-built bi-directional vehicle battery, allowing it to act as a mobile power plant.
Mr Schillaci said this mobile power plant capability was demonstrated following the 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Japan, last month.
“After the earthquake, they cut all power to prevent fires, Leaf owners simply plugged their cars into their own homes and used the car’s battery to power their homes for two days,” Mr Schillaci said.
