Australia's V8 love lives on: "High demand" for potent engines driven by lack of EV incentives

Jaguar Land Rover is still seeing “high demand” for its straight-six and V8 engines, and predicts it will continue to do so until incentives to switch to a lower-emission option improve.

While many brands in Australia are beginning to introduce hybrid, plug-in hybrid or full BEV engine options to their line-ups, Jaguar Land Rover has mostly chosen to leave its PHEV options overseas.

The reason, says JLR MD Mark Cameron, is that while some state governments have flagged EV incentives, few of them extend to vehicles that wear a premium price tag, and until they do, interest in six-cylinder and V8 engines isn’t going anywhere.

“I’m pleased to see some of these changes at the state level in terms of incentives around electric vehicles,” he says. “We have a great range of plug-on hybrids available that are produced globally.

‘We’re not currently selling them in Australia, so I’m looking at the market changes, the condition changes, with a view to decide when the best opportunity is for these vehicles to be introduced into Australia.

We’d like to see the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold be reviewed. We would like customers buying more expensive cars to have some inventive to switch their buying behaviour away from buying traditional ICE engines to low-ermissrnos vehicles.

“But until there’s some incentive for those customers, we’re going to see high degree of demand for straight-sixes and V8s.”

In NSW, for example, stamp duty will be waived electric vehicles under $78,000 from September this year, expanding to including plug-in hybrids from July 2027. A $3000 rebate will also apply to the first 25,000 EVs sold from September this year under $68,750.

That price ceiling roughly matches the LCT threshold of $79,659, a number that plenty of JLR models sit above, essentially meaning there is no incentives for their shoppers to make the switch.

"We’re going to have a great range of technology. I do hope we can bring in more of our plug-in hybrid range and full BEVs in years to come," Mr Cameron says.