Why surge in Chinese-made EVs are regarded as a threat to the great Aussie weekend

The popularity of Chinese electric cars is being cast as a threat to the weekend under a Coalition plan to repeal Labor’s vehicle emission standards.

With battery electric cars outselling petrol vehicles in August, for the first time ever during a single month, the shadow minister for energy and emissions reduction Dan Tehan argued Labor’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard to encourage the take-up of EVs would mean higher taxes on diesel-powered utes and four-wheel drives.

“We’ve said it before - if you tax these things too much your weekend will be under threat because you won’t be able to afford to not only fill your boat up but to buy the car you need to tow your boat,” he told The Nightly.

“Whether it’s for light goods or taking your boat to go fishing, all these things you require, for most people, in suburban, regional and rural Australia, to use diesel.”

Mr Tehan’s comments are reminiscent of former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison in the 2019 election campaign accusing then Labor leader Bill Shorten of wanting to “end the weekend” with a policy of electric cars making up 50 per cent of new sales by 2030.

This was more ambitious than the Coalition’s plan at the time for EVs to make up a quarter to half of all new sales by 2030.

Battery electric vehicles in August had a 24.9 per cent market share with the 27,089 sales putting them ahead of the 25,824 deliveries for petrol cars, the 23,608 orders for diesels, 18,662 sales for hybrids and 10,591 for plug-in hybrids.

The Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger - diesel utes made in Thailand - were Australia’s third and fifth most popular vehicles in August with both having a towing capacity of 3.5 tonnes

The Chinese-made BYD Shark 6 was Australia’s sixth most popular vehicle in June and as a petrol-electric hybrid also has a maximum towing capacity of 3.5t.

Fully electric utes, however, have an inferior towing capacity with the Chinese LDV eT60 only being able to tow a tonne.

Toyota’s fully-electric HiLux can tow two tonnes but its maximum driving range of 315km is less than half that of a typical diesel variant.

From next year, car makers selling too many diesel utes will be penalised if their light commercial fleet average was above 150 grams of carbon per kilometre.

The typical new diesel HiLux emits 182 grams of Co2 per kilometre which is slightly higher than this year’s target of 180 grams per kilometre under the broader four-year NVES plan to slash light commercial vehicle emissions in average new fleets by 48 per cent by 2029.

“They’re literally about to ramp it up again to make it more expensive to drive a petrol or diesel car,” Mr Tehan said.

The Coalition lost last year’s election after former leader Peter Dutton campaigned to scrap Labor’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard along with tax breaks for motorists buying an electric vehicle through a novated lease.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries was opposed to Labor’s NVES in March 2024 and that month EV manufacturers Tesla and Polestar quit the organisation.

Diesel is selling for more than $2.90 a litre in Australia’s big cities following the end of fuel tax relief to cushion drivers from the effects of the Iran war.

Unlike Labor, the Coalition is also heeding concerns from former Liberal prime minister adviser Alastair MacGibbon about Chinese cars being a cybersecurity threat after Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen admitted to the ABC’s Four Corners program he was comfortable with driving around in a Chinese XPeng G6.

Should it come to power, the Coalition has indicated it would take advice from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation about whether it was safe for ministers to ride around in Chinese cars given the concerns raised about them recording conversations and feeding location data back to China.