The biggest yet bulk purchase of electric cars for Australia was announced at the opening of the motor show in Melbourne yesterday, signalling the dawn of a new era of electric motoring.
GE Capital Finance, joined by the car maker Renault and the recharge company Better Place, announced it would buy at least 1000 electric cars to lease to fleet customers over the next four years.
The director of GE’s ”ecomagination” division, Ben Waters, said fleet customers, mainly large corporations and governments, were looking for tangible ways to reduce their CO2 emissions.
”Companies have their own emissions reduction goals - a lot of their emissions are in their fleet,” he said. ”The question is how quickly we can ramp it up. We can help that.”
Renault’s Fluence ZE sedan, unlike other electric cars now in the pipeline for Australia, has a battery pack that can be swapped in and out of the car.
Better Place will establish the battery swap stations, as well as smart recharge points fed by renewable electricity generation, starting in Canberra this year, followed by Sydney and Melbourne.
The technological transformations happened later than people thought, said Better Place Australia’s chief executive, Evan Thornley. ”But when they do, they always happen bigger than people think,” he said. ”And when they’re over, we can’t remember how the world used to be.”
Other electric cars on show include the Nissan Leaf (expected to cost from $50,000 when it goes on sale next April) and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which goes on sale in mid-August for $48,800.
And then there is a home-grown electric car, the EDay Life E15 - Australian designed and engineered, Chinese built - which could be sold through cafes rather than dealerships.
But stargazers are catered for at the show, with stunning concepts cars from Mazda (the Shinari is said to represent the brand’s styling future, while its Minagi is a precursor to the coming CX-5 compact SUV), the Audi E-tron electric sports car (destined for production next year), BMW’s artistic EfficientDynamics concept car and Ford’s brutal Mad Max cars made for the next film.
Petrol heads should make for the Lamborghini stand for the $754,600 700-horsepower (515kW) 6.5-litre V12, all-wheel-drive, carbon fibre Aventador, specially flown out after its Geneva show debut. It boasts a 100km/h sprint time of 2.9 seconds, and a top speed of 350km/h. All five bound for Melbourne this year have been presold.
But the competition for the wallets of budget car buyers is fierce, with Skoda’s Mini-rivalling Fabia Monte Carlo making its debut, as are Kia’s new Rio, Hyundai’s asymmetrical Veloster fastback (it has two doors kerbside, one on the driver’s side) and Toyota’s new Yaris among those leading the light-car charge.
Other show highlights include the stunning Range Rover Evoque (which can be had from $49,995, but can be optioned to the heavens), the Hyundai i40 Tourer wagon that rivals class leaders for stylish family wheels.
