Australia may be able to bring a new lease on life on its car manufacturing industry with the help of electric vehicles (EV), a new industry report said.
Titled Rebuilding vehicle manufacturing in Australia: industrial opportunities in an electrified future, the report states that Australia can take advantage of its renewable energy, extractive industries, inert manufacturing capabilities, and skilled workers to for a new EV manufacturing sector.
According to lead author Dr. Mark Dean, this new and high-tech industry could help bolster EV adoption by spreading its benefits to a wider population.
“For decades the auto industry was the glue that held communities together. It provided security and good standards of living,” Dean said.
“What you’ll be doing is saying to all these different people in all these different communities that by creating an electric vehicle industry-driven future, you will benefit.
“We need people to mine these commodities, process them, and we need them to be transported so they can be manufactured – everyone along the way benefits.”
The paper posits that Australia needs an overarching, coordinating and strategic national industry policy to kickstart the EV industry.
To achieve this, the paper proposes solutions revolving around on industry planning, energy requirements, consumer demand, resource use, supply chain developments, skills and training, and government support.
The report has garnered positive feedback from the EV industry.
“As far as we’re concerned this is a great opportunity to rebuild from the bottom up a new vehicle industry in Australia,” Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national president, Andrew Dettmer said, “But we need to see government take it up and, for once, be bold.”
Meanwhile, Electric Vehicle Council chief executive officer Behyad Jafari said “Building electric vehicles here means we could ensure we’ll have a supply of electric vehicles available for us to buy, which would be a really big boost to decarbonising our entire market.”
A copy of the report can be downloaded here.
