The Australian electric and hybrid vehicle market is expected to be bolstered after changes were made to vehicle importing regulations in parliament.

The regulations, which will see a new environmental category introduced under the Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicle (SEV) scheme, will allow electric (EV) and hybrid (PHEV) vehicles previously not available in Australia to be imported, registered and sold locally.

Australia has largely struggled to adopt alternative fuel vehicles to date due to a number of mitigating factors, which has caused many manufacturers to delay or halt the arrival of their electric models in the country.

These new regulations now open the door for vehicles including the Audi e-tron, Toyota RAV4 PHEV and Nissan Leaf e+ to be made available locally. The Kia e-Niro and Soul EV will also potentially become available, after Kia delayed their early 2020 arrival indefinitely due to Australia’s lack of emission standards and demands.

The arrival of more EV models in Australia is expected to kick-start the country’s EV sales market. However, the Australia Imported Motor Vehicle Industry Association (AIMVIA) believes the limited availability of vehicles thus far can be explained by the lack of servicing and maintenance required by the new electric models.

“There has been a natural reluctance by both manufacturers and dealers to sell EVs here because of price but also certainly in the case of pure EVs they require less servicing,” said, Kristian Appelt, a spokesperson for AIMVIA.

“Dealers rely on ongoing maintenance as part of their overall mix so there’s no real incentive for them to promote electric vehicles.”

AIMVIA believe that allowing more models to be imported sends a message to dealers that these vehicles will be made available with or without their blessing.

“What the new legislation does is a fairly simple change that says to the manufacturers, put up or shut up.

“If you don’t provide them to the market we will allow people to import these vehicles themselves – it’s really about choice.”

The rule change will also open the door for higher specification versions of models already available in Australia to be imported and sold.

For example, the Nissan Leaf 40kWh is available in Australia, however the newer 62kWh version, which is not currently available, will be one of many newly eligible options.

Original source: The Driven | Long range Nissan Leaf and e-Niro soon available under new “grey import” rules

29 Nov 2019