Western Australia’s McGowan Government is earmarking close to $60 million to boost uptake of electric cars and other zero emission vehicles, but will lump EV drivers with a tax further along the road.
As part of WA State Budget 2022-23, the $36.5 million Clean Energy Car Fund will provide up to 10,000 rebates of $3,500 to Western Australians to support the purchase of a new electric or hydrogen fuel cell vehicle up to a value of $70,000.
“Our $3,500 rebates are one of the most generous grants on offer in the nation and will see an extra 10,000 electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on our roads,” said Premier McGowan. “This will assist WA with reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, while also reducing the pressure of high petrol prices on WA households that utilise the rebate.”
The claim about the level of subsidy appears to stack up, although some states also offer additional incentives such as cheaper/free rego. Among other states offering, or about to offer an EV rebate:
- Queensland – $3,000 for new vehicles under $58,000 purchase price from July 1, 2022
- New South Wales – $3,000 rebate for new vehicles with a dutiable value of less than $68,750
- Victoria – $3,000 for new eligible vehicles with a dutiable value under a threshold of $68,740
- South Australia – A $3,000 rebate for new electric vehicles with a price cap of $68,750
As for how long the WA EV rebates will last, the McGowan Government estimates it will take until 2025 to use them up.
How To Get The WA EV Rebate
Western Australia’s 2022-23 Budget won’t be handed down until this Thursday, but applications for the EV rebate opened yesterday.
While applications will be processed by the Department of Transport as they are received, payments won’t be made until after Friday 1 July 2022. Past that point, payments may take up to four weeks to process. You won’t be able to claim the rebate until the vehicle is first registered.
Further information on the WA Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Rebate is available here.
Other Electric Vehicle Related Support
The McGowan Government is also splashing out a bundle of bucks on new infrastructure to expand Western Australia’s electric vehicle charging network. The 2022-23 Budget will include:
- $10 million to support non-profits and small-to-medium businesses with grants of up to 50 per cent of the cost of installing EV charging infrastructure.
- $5 million for councils to do the same (up to 50% towards the cost).
- $4 million for the State’s Public Transport Authority to trial electric vehicle charging installations at four train stations.
- More than $2.9 million for eight new EV charging stations across four locations along National Highway 1 between Norseman, the last major town before the journey across the Nullabor, and Eucla, near the South Australia border. This stretch of road is approximately 700 kilometres long.
Additional funding is also to be allocated to support research informing a strategy to transition the Public Transport Authority’s bus fleet to electric vehicles. Transperth currently has around 1,500 buses in its fleet.
Zero Emission Vehicle Road User Charge (Tax)
The sting in the tail of all this is the introduction of a distance-based road user charge for zero and low emission light vehicles – something that has already been introduced or will be introduced in several other states. But it won’t be implemented in WA for a few years.
Kicking off on July 1, 2027, a rate of 2.5 cents per kilometre for electric and hydrogen vehicles and two cents per kilometre for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will apply, with both indexed to the CPI. The McGowan Government said the charge is being implemented to ensure all motorists pay their fair share towards the maintenance and construction of roads in the state.
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How is the c per km tax to be implemented? Is the government going to monitor vehicle travels, or will vehicles need to be submitted for testing and odometer readings sent to the ‘tax office’?
George Kaplan,
“Is the government going to monitor vehicle travels, or will vehicles need to be submitted for testing and odometer readings sent to the ‘tax office’?”
Odometer readings are already being periodically recorded in NSW when vehicle inspections for ‘pink slips’ are performed.
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/vic-ev-tax-rebate/#comment-1056993
WA apparently doesn’t do this… so far.
The EV distance tax apparently won’t be implemented in WA for a few years. Maybe the WA Government is thinking about following NSW’s example?
Meanwhile, the 6-month only TEMPORARY fuel excise cut of $0.221 per litre, instigated in the 2022 Federal Budget, is already being eroded.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/09/fuel-excise-cut-savings-eroded-by-rising-petrol-prices-amid-increasing-cost-of-living-pressures
I think ongoing rising petroleum fuel prices is a much more important issue for Australia’s energy and food security and affordability situation. Whomever wins government from the outcome of the May 21 election will need to deal with these escalating consequences.
Petrol prices in USA on 9 May seem be around US$1.21 on 9 May, up from .97 cents at 31st Jan 2022. Unclear to me though, as to what extent that reflects release of ‘reserves’ instigated by POTUS.
Coal and gas mining industry seem be trying to convince everyone that, in order to make the ‘transition’ to renewables, more coal and gas needs to be mined and burnt in order to provide the additional ‘energy’ needed to manufacture all the needed renewable gear while at the same time keeping national electricity supply running smoothly.
ie. ‘renewables’ won’t be able to meet the temporary surge in demand on top of supposed extra demand from population growth etc etc.
I won’t bother discussing that line of argument, because the reality is that no-one really has clue at all at the moment as to how both international events, and climate change impacts will intertwine with each other and what the final outcomes will thus be. Including effects on population levels, business activity, food supply and sundry supply change disruption
I’d suggest that ‘just who’ we elect at the upcoming Federal Election may be a far more significant choice that many realize because of longer/medium term implications.
Des Scahill,
“Unclear to me though, as to what extent that reflects release of ‘reserves’ instigated by POTUS.”
IMO, a release of 1 Mb/d from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) since the beginning of May 2022 on the order of POTUS doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect on reducing US retail gasoline fuel prices so far.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_gas_price
The latest release over six months will amount to a loss of one-third of the oil still remaining in the SPR. What if that isn’t enough to lower fuel prices, and keep them lower? We’ll see.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/05/energy/spr-biden/index.html
“I’d suggest that ‘just who’ we elect at the upcoming Federal Election may be a far more significant choice that many realize because of longer/medium term implications.”
Indeed, but I think most politicians, business leaders, the media and voters are ‘energy blind’.
Dump the fuel excise and introduce a RUC for all vehicles. The more damage a vehicle does to the roads or the environment, the higher the charge. So a light weight EV might be charged 2c /km, through to say $1 / km for a diesel powered A/B double truck.
This then will (should?) encourage the use of public transport for goods and people rather than the more expensive private vehicle.
It is a terrible waste of resources having private cars doing nothing 96% of the time.