BYD and other Chinese electric car brands to boost EV uptake in Australia, but better supply from other global manufacturers would help: EV Council

Electric vehicles made by Chinese manufacturers are one of the key factors in increasing the uptake of EVs in Australia.

That’s according to the CEO of Australia’s Electric Vehicle Council, Behyad Jafari, discussing the organisation’s latest State of EVs report.

Mr Jafari highlighted the report’s findings that sales of electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles had increased threefold in Australia since 2018.

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He said that a number of factors would help improve EV take-up in Australia – including better government policies that help encourage buyers to buy an EV – as well as better supply of vehicles to Australia.

When asked what role China would play in Australia’s EV market, Mr Jafari pointed to the measured shift in Chinese manufacturers’ focus from the domestic to the international markets.

“What we have seen from global and Australian analysts, all of the projections about where the electric vehicle market is going and how fast it is going, what sales will look like what prices will look like, it is all with the assumption that those Chinese manufacturers are spending their time focused on China for now,” he said.

“And while they will start to look at other markets, their primary potential will be in the Chinese market. The more we see that grow, the more we can start lifting some of those projections up.”

He added that because many Chinese automotive brands are “entirely focused on electric vehicles, they don’t have the baggage of legacy vehicles, petrol and diesel vehicles. And they are scaling up quite quickly and building new factories quite quickly.”

Mr Jafari also pointed to the bullish sales targets of Chinese EV brand BYD that recently launched the Atto 3 SUV as its first mass-volume model for the Australian market.

The Chinese-made Tesla Model 3 was the best-selling EV in Australia in 2021.

“With the first model they have got, their allocation is 15,000 initially, and already looking at increasing that for just one model this year.”

Last year the top selling EV in Australia by a huge margin was the Tesla Model 3 – which is also made in China for the Australian market – with more than 12,000 units sold here. If BYD reaches its target, it could eventually outpace Tesla for sales in Australia.

As CarsGuide has reported, more BYD models are on the way, including the Atto 4 sedan and the Dolphin city hatch that will be renamed for Australia.

Without pinpointing brands, Mr Jafari said other manufacturers would have an impact on Australia’s EV market, adding that if there was sufficient supply from global parent companies, there could have been many more EVs sold last year.

“Certainly, there’s an opportunity there (for BYD), but just as much of an opportunity as there is for any other brand. I think what we saw was that while Tesla had some 12,000-plus sales, and most of that coming from just the Tesla Model 3, there was room in the market last year for two or three other players to have just as many sales, if they had product available in Australia to sell.”

The Volkswagen ID.4 has been confirmed for launch in Australia in 2023.

Mr Jafari said regardless of whether an automotive brand hails from China or somewhere else, one of the keys to wider EV adoption is to convince global parent companies to bring more products to Australia. If more products were available, the percentage of EV sales in Australia would have been considerably higher last year.

“There are those levers available to us to quite quickly and dramatically bring ourselves, we think, at least to around six-to-eight per cent (EV sales). When we look at the Australian market last year, we were two per cent. The global sales average was about eight per cent. I think it could have been quite close to that if everyone who was ready to buy an electric vehicle had access to one.”

Some brands have held off on offering electric models in Australia because of the expense in launching them and relatively low volumes compared with other markets like Europe. Volkswagen was one such brand but confirmed this week that the ID.4 and ID.5 will arrive next year. VW Group sister brands will launch the Skoda Enyaq and Cupra Born in the next year or so too.

Other Chinese brands with EV offerings that are expected in Australia soon include GWM-owned Ora, the return of Chery, and other possibilities like Nio.