Queensland is moving slowly down the road to electric cars.
A local company that makes charging stations has opened a new factory in Brisbane.
Dominic Elsome reports.
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The Queensland Government has launched its “The Future is Electric” strategy, and a new factory making chargers.
Mark Bailey MP, Qld Minister for Energy: “Tritium are world leaders in technology for electric vehicle super charges. We’ve got 15 of them on the electric vehicle super highway up the Queensland coast, from the Gold Coast to Cairns.”
Australia has one of the world’s worst uptakes of electric vehicles – they make up just 0.1 per cent of the market.
So the government wants to transition its own vehicle fleet to encourage others.
Mark Bailey MP, Qld Minister for Energy: “We’re putting in the infrastructure in Queensland, in public places, to make sure that we’re ready as electric vehicles increasingly get sold.”
Today’s announcement comes as, globally, we’re seeing a shift by governments and companies away from combustion engines.
Earlier this year, France and the UK announced bans on new petrol and diesel cars from 2040 onwards.
The state government says Australia needs to follow suit.
Mark Bailey MP, Qld Minister for Energy: “It needs to be dealt with by the federal government as well as the Palaszczuk Government here. And at the moment, we’ve got a big fat zero out of them on electric vehicles. They are lost in the weeds.”
It looks like the future for motoring will be electrifying.
Dominic Elsome, QUT News.