It has taken a while, but 2023 will be when Australia embraces electric cars | Opinion

There is no denying Australia has been slow in getting onto the electric car hype train, but I’m betting that is all about to change and 2023 will be the year that happens.

Whether it is because of our unique geography, the lack of government incentives, our love affair with performance cars and diesel-powered utes, or the fact that there just aren’t as many public charging stations that we need – or more likely, a combination of all these factors – the avalanche of new EV product coming to our shores in 2023 will surely turn the tide.

No less than 20 new EVs are expected to land next year, ranging from the cute and affordable, all the way up to the expensive and exotic.

Take a look at Australia’s electric car landscape as it stands now, the cheapest offering is the MG ZS EV priced at $44,990 drive-away, while the most popular vehicle is the Tesla Model 3 available from $65,600 before on-road costs.

While you could argue that these cars are affordable – at least for EVs – there is still a huge gulf between the perceived value cars like the Toyota Corolla (from $25,395) and Hyundai Venue (from $21,740).

Enter the Fiat 500e, MG4 and GWM Ora Good Cat (name pending) – a trio of new electric cars that are small in size and could also carry a small pricetag to match.

You can’t expect the driving range of these new models to exceed 500km on a single charge, but as inner-city, occasional runabouts, these three will easily get you to the farmer’s market or your parents house in the suburbs and back.

Well, what about the largest car-buying audience in Australia? The families that look for a mid-size SUV like a Toyota RAV4 or Mazda CX-5?

Already, the sell-out success of the Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Tesla Model Y prove the appetite is there, and that hunger is going to be satiated further with the arrival of the Subaru Solterra and Toyota bZ4X twins due to land around the middle of 2023, and before the end of 2023, respectively.

While the hype and anticipation of Toyota’s first all-electric, mass-market model might be dampened a bit with overseas models facing recalls, it cannot be understated how important it is for the number one brand in Australia to finally have an EV in its stable.

Wanting to go a little more upmarket? Lexus’ RZ, Porsche’s new-generation Macan, the Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV and BMW’s iX1 will have you covered, and will offer plenty of practical space to lug around your family and groceries in comfort and style.

And for car-lovers that like to go fast and look cool doing it, Hyundai’s Ioniq 6, Cupra’s Born hatchback and the soon-to-launch Kia EV6 GT and related Hyundai Ioniq 5 N will serve up go-fast thrills without a drop of petrol needed.

Off-road lovers? Kia has you covered with its upcoming EV9, while Rivian has also stated its intention to bring its R1S to Australia after launching in larger markets like the US.

Commercial vehicle operators and fleets will also be served thanks to the Ford E-Transit, Peugeot e-Partner and arriving-in-showrooms-soon Mercedes-Benz eVito, and it might be these vans that will push charging infrastructure to saturation point.

On that note, charging infrastructure operators like Chargefox and Jet Charge, as well a service stations like Ampol and BP, are all promising to roll out thousands more outlets to meet the growing demand of EVs.

However, the one segment that's still being neglected – at least for now – is utes.

LDV has confirmed its eT60 will launch in 2022 as the first all-electric rival to the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux, but when the other brands will get on board is currently unclear. We do know however, there are electrified utes on the way from Mitsubishi, GWM and others.

Whether these will be all-electric is still to be seen, but don’t be mistaken, utes and pick-ups will go tailpipe emissions free – it’s just a question of when.

And 2022 has laid the groundwork for all this to happen, just look at the sales figures of EVs so far this year.

Electric vehicle sales are up a massive 368.2 per cent year on year, with 14,524 registrations to the end of August.

That means more people have bought EVs this year than Audis (9098 sales YTD), Hondas (9809) or Jeeps (4748).

Sure, most of these sales belong to Tesla, which only just started reporting sales data this year, and the Model 3 has notched up 7037 sales so far, but we’ll no doubt see these numbers grow even more with the avalanche of new EVs coming soon to Aussie shores.

And all this begs the question: Are you ready to make the switch to an electric car?

It might not make sense to most right now, but I’m sure the thought has entered your mind at some point in the new car-buying process.

‘Will my next car be electric? Will the car I buy after that be electric?’

Australia will soon have a breadth of range to rival some parts of Europe, and we have long sailed past the point of “if we will adopt electric cars”, and the question has now turned to “when we will adopt electric cars”.

My hunch? 2023 will be that when.