Electric Cars

The Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium is the mid-range version of the Mexican-made, American electric vehicle, and is based on the GE1 architecture that is loosely derived from the Ford Escape mid-sized SUV no-longer available in Australia.

Tesla might finally be conceding defeat.

There is a sneak peak for a new affordable compact SUV.

The saviour of electric cars may have come crashing down to earth before it’s even risen.

The Australian Federal Government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) is now well and truly in effect and certain carmakers can theoretically profit from the credits that it provides.One of these brands is Polestar, which currently only sells electric vehicles (EVs), as all of its vehicles are under the set CO2 emissions targets.Carmakers that do have a number of new vehicles above the CO2 emissions targets and can’t offset them with new vehicles under the threshold are currently at risk of being fined.These fines currently sit at $100 per gram of CO2 per kilometre for each vehicle sold.As a result, carmakers with credits are able to sell them to other carmakers that will pay fines.Speaking with CarsGuide, Polestar Australia Managing Director Scott Maynard praised this method as it incentivises carmakers to invest in low-emissions vehicles.“Yes, so Polestar will sell carbon credits that it collects along the way to brands,” said Maynard.“I think it’s right that brands that aren’t prepared to invest then have to pay brands that are investing .“So we’ll definitely be part of that program.”Although Maynard didn’t disclose any specific carmaker that Polestar has already sold credits to, he did mention that the company will be selective.“We’ll be careful about who we partner with and who we sell to, but we will be taking their money.”This follows a number of carmakers calling for the NVES CO2 target to be tapered more gradually.Earlier this year former Mitsubishi Australia CEO Shaun Westcott also explained there are still major hurdles to overcome local EV takeup.“Just penalising us is not going to deliver the outcomes we need,” said Westcott in July 2025.“The original thinking was that if you penalised us, we’d bring more EVs to the market.”“There’s no shortage of choice, what we lack is positive initiatives. You can give us as many sticks as you like, we need some carrots.”“The bigger challenge with adoption is that we need to have a government which considers the peculiarities of the Australian market. We’re not Norway. We’re not a small country. We don’t have cities that are 40 kilometres apart.“I think the reality we’re looking at today is a lot of brands have dialled back their EV ambitions because they’ve realised that just bringing the cars to the market, you can fill your showroom with EVs but if nobody buys them you’d have to discount those cars to a point where they will be below the cost of production and that’s happening already just to get people to take them.“OEMs realise that to stay alive you have to sell cars - if Australians aren’t buying the EVs then we have to bring combustion and all the other powertrains to market and that will continue to happen despite the penalties because if the demand isn’t there, you haven’t got a business. It’s simple economics.“Every brand has to cover the cost of those penalties to survive and if customers are only buying single digit (percentages) of EVs - everyone is going to be copping penalties.”Although Polestar Australia sales have been growing, the company globally is currently experiencing some massive financial losses and swirling bankruptcy rumours.In fact Polestar, which is currently publicly listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, is at risk of being delisted unless it raises its stock price to US$1 ($1.53) for 10 consecutive days.For context, Polestar’s Nasdaq shares are currently sitting at US$0.52 ($0.80).

These days it seems like a new car brand arrives in Australia each week, so it can be easy to become ambivalent about each new name.But you should be paying attention to the latest arrival, because it has the potential to really shake things up, even if you’ve never heard of it before.Denza is the brand in question, revealing plans for a pair of new ‘premium’ off-roaders — the B5 and B8 — to hit showrooms by the end of 2025. So why should you care about Denza?Because it isn’t an ‘all-new’ brand here, it’s actually a spin-off from BYD, which is already well-established in Australia and rapidly rising up the sales charts with its mix of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles, including the popular Shark 6 ute.In fact, it’s the success of the Shark 6, a plug-in hybrid dual-cab, that bodes so well for Denza. The Shark 6 is already amongst the best-selling 4x4 utes on the market, sure it may be nowhere near the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux in sheer volume, but it has already cemented a place amongst the top five utes each month.Based on the sales data available to us, it’s comfortably out-selling Ford’s plug-in hybrid Ranger, showing that a new audience is embracing new technology from new brands in the traditional ute market.Denza will be hoping to do the same in the off-road space, with the B5 and B8 clearly aimed at Toyota’s beloved LandCruiser and Prado. Like the Shark, they will offer something different, with a potent (425kW and 450kW) plug-in hybrid set-up and plenty of other technologies and luxuries.We don’t know how much they’ll cost yet, but despite all the talk of Denza being a ‘premium’ offering, history suggests this Chinese brand will be aggressive on price to undercut its more established competition.The recent strong sales performances of BYD, GWM, Chery and MG underline how important value is to the current generation of brand-agnostic buyers. In this post-Holden/Ford locally-made cars world we now find ourselves, brand loyalty is a thing of the past.Value is what Australian new car buyers are looking for and it’s the Chinese brands that are looking to provide it. Whether it is sustainable or not is an entirely different debate, and one that’s irrelevant for people looking to purchase a new car in the here and now.BYD is already up nearly 150 per cent in sales volume in the first three quarters of 2025, led by the Shark 6 but ably backed up by the Sealion 6 PHEV and Sealion 7 EV SUVs. BYD will look to gain even more of the new car market by appealing to both first time car buyers and EV bargain hunters, when the new $25k Atto 1 hatch goes on sale and undercuts not only every other electric car but also most cars full stop.It is clear that, now run in-house, BYD is looking to make sure it remains headed up the sales charts. So if you only remember a few names from this current influx of new brands, make sure it’s BYD and Denza, because they are the ones most likely to make a lasting impact.

The Ford Mustang Mach-E Select from America (via Mexico) is the base version of Ford’s first electric vehicle (EV) in Australia. Prices start from $65,990 before on-road costs.

Ford currently offers around half a dozen EV models around the world that Australians cannot buy. But arguably the absent electric Ford with the most potential in Australia is the one that may also be the easiest to import, since it is already part of an existing model range, and so has already been homologated for sale here. And it is also different enough to stand out in a growing crowd of EVs in the $60,000 to $100,000 bracket.

Two months in, has the fancy veneer worn off the Geely EX5?

Zeekr has lowered the price of entry to its 009 electric people mover range by $20,000 with the addition of a new model grade.