According to ScoMo , electric cars are for wimps and latte sippers – real Australians want more grunt. Oink oink, vroom vroom! Wheelies, doughnuts, burnouts!
Real Aussies drive utes, with a spare SUV to take the family camping at the weekend. Bill Shorten and his dinkies just don’t cut it – as Matthias Cormann might say, just a girly man. Revheads rule, OK?
Malcolm Turnbull tactfully described ScoMo’s rant as peak crazy, which it obviously was. But perhaps even worse, it was pig (grunt) ignorant.
Our prime minister apparently believes that electric vehicles are still in the most primitive stages of underdevelopment. But, as the model T Ford has evolved to the Toyota Hilux, electric cars have changed far more quickly, the surge driven by high end technology and insatiable demand.
Nowadays they can outpace Ferraris and pull heavy caravans, as can be seen in innumerable internet posts. And if the punters want utes, they will quickly be provided. Indeed, Toyota itself is in the process of transitioning its entire operation to electric by 2050.
The change is both swift and irrevocable; in much of Europe electric is rapidly becoming the preferred option and here in Australia, the government’s own projections expect somewhere between 26 and 50 per cent of new vehicles to be electric by 2030. Shorten’s target is at the top end, but is by no means fanciful.
It may well be that in rural and some regional areas there will be resistance, but far more than half the nation’s drivers live in the cities, for which electrics, quiet, pollution free and cheaper to run, are the ideal conditions.
Of course, our leader remains, as so often, in Luddite denial. He ridiculed Shorten’s claim that vehicles could recharge in about eight minutes, but not only is the technology already available, Morrison’s own government is funding the infrastructure to implement it.
Shorten wants to go to the next step – not only importing electric vehicles but manufacturing them in whole or in part, in Australia. This is a very big ask, given the demise of the highly subsidised motor industry in the past and economic purists will reject it the idea on the spot, but the displaced workers in Geelong, Elizabeth and Altona, among others, might be more enthusiastic.
However, that is for the future – the present is that electric vehicles are coming, ready or not. Obviously there will be problems and glitches along the way, but other countries are readily overcoming them – is ScoMo suggesting that Australia is unable to do so? Does he really want us to be stuck in the age of the gas guzzlers?
Given his administration’s refusal to take science seriously when it comes to climate change, it is hardly surprising that he yearns for a past when things were so much less complicated. So perhaps he really yearns to go back to the simple times of the horse and buggy, and his vision is not for machines he cannot comprehend, but for the days when transport relies on flying pigs. Now there’s grunt for you.
Mungo MacCallum is a veteran political journalist and commentator. His books include Run Johnny Run, Poll Dancing, and Punch and Judy.
mungomccallum@staging-johnmenadue.kinsta.cloud
Comments
9 responses to “MUNGO MacCALLUM. Our Leader remains, as so often, in Luddite denial.”
As usual the dinosaurs of the LNP still don’t think the wheel has been invented .As for Cash nodding in the background .reminds me of my nodding dog in my car on a really rough road
Labor’s done it before AND under more trying circumstances – only three years after WW2. We designed a car without a chassis (“It’ll never be able to tow a caravan” – sound familiar?), we developed techniques in metalergy that was copied by USA and the vehicle was fuel efficient. “Designed for Australian conditions” was the blurb.
And while this was going on we designed and completed Snowy 1.0, which makes Snowy 2.0 look like a sand castle on the beach.
Electric vehicles made in Australia?
Who would of thunk it!
https://www.ace-ev.com.au/
I’m surprised that Labor hasn’t referred daily to Cash’s foot shot, particularly with Morrison agreeing with nods & smirks in the background. Labor’s got to use the clip in future ads.
As usual Mungo; well written good sense.
Great stuff! Except that I don’t think it quite right to describe the previous auto industry as ‘highly subsidised’. Pretty small compared to eg the subsidy to private health insurance, which is totally unproductive.
Mungo sorry to have to report but you are also a bit behind SEA electrics is already producing electric trucks in Australia with huge grunt tool!
Max,
to be more precise, SEA produces a conversion kit which replaces the engine and transmission in several selected models of trucks. They have enjoyed some good publicity in the US in the last couple of days with one of their converted trucks at a US Truck Show. In NZ, one of their converted trucks has been doing a garbage run for more than 12 months.
The company has relocated from Melbourne to Yallourn in the Latrobe Valley via a state government grant.
(I have no affiliation with SEA btw).
A cartoon in a local paper recently featured ScoMo as a caveman talking to another caveman who had just crafted a wheel from stone.
ScoMo says: “Nah, it will never take off!”
The caption simply said: Pre electric car days!
Scooter and Madam Lash ranting about tradies ‘n utes ‘n stuff is another nail in their coffin of credibility. Anyone who has even a passing knowledge of motor driven vehicles of any kind knows that EV’s are the way of the future. Cars and transport all over the world are already moving at an increasing rate to this power source. The LNP will continue to self destruct, taking us all with them if they are ‘re elected.