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> Australia is spread out. Opinions / data, let's go with the data. It's really not. Australia is mostly uninhabited, with most people living in very few high
by TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
> Australia is spread out.
Opinions / data, let's go with the data.
It's really not. Australia is mostly uninhabited, with most people living in very few high density places.
The average commute distance in Australia is 16 kilometres; 90% of Australians live on the East Coast; 73% of Australian's commute less than 20 kilometres.[1]
Even Western Australian has people living outside of Perth, which, by the way, is the most remote centre of commerce in the world, has an average commute distance of 20.4 kilometres.[1]
The average Australian vehicle travels about 12,100 kilometres annually, that's all vehicles including freight vehicles.[2] The average household in Australia owns 1.8 cars[3], so very many Australian's would be well served by owning at least one purely electric vehicle, but don't.
Plug-in hybrids are mostly not a thing here.[4]
1. https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/2071.0.55.001~2016~Main%20Features~Commuting%20Distance%20for%20Australia~1 https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject...
2. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/survey-motor-vehicle-use-australia/12-months-ended-30-june-2020 https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-trans...
3. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-transport/transport-census/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/tourism-and-trans...
4. https://www.aaa.asn.au/research-data/electric-vehicle/ https://www.aaa.asn.au/research-data/electric-vehicle/
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoYou keep talking about data but then looking at the wrong data. Average commute or distance traveled per year isn't the interesting number. If you're considering an electric car with a range of 300km, it doesn't matter if your average commute is 16km or 100km, what matters is, do you take trips in excess of 300km? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-aussies-holidaymakers-taking-open-005600841.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-aussies-holidaymakers-ta...: > The number of survey respondents who have taken a road trip increased to 91.9% in 2024 from 88.4% in the same survey in 2022 And if anything, fewer total miles traveled per year would make EVs less attractive there because of less in terms of fuel savings. > Plug-in hybrids are mostly not a thing here. Plug-in hybrids are relatively new because they're basically normal hybrids with bigger batteries, so the batteries had to get cheap and light enough to make that work, and they got faster adoption in countries like the US because of tax incentives that favor PHEVs over traditional HEVs. Meanwhile from your own link, 25% of new cars in Australia are some type of hybrid of BEV, compared to 19% in the US. Consistent with "they are buying more fuel efficient vehicles", it's just that those vehicles are turbocharged low displacement or hybrid SUVs. It's possible that the difference in tax incentives is causing carmakers to allocate PHEVs to the countries providing incentives specifically for those given a finite amount of battery production capacity, but according to your own numbers PHEVs are a good fit for Australians. Average commute is well within their all-electric range but then you still have no trouble taking the occasional road trip.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoI'm all for it. I owned a hybrid SUV for a bit, performance and fuel economy were quite pleasant. But I kinda need a van, and can't drive four cars simultaneously, and there aren't any hybrid vans available here.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoQ3 this year: https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-ford-transit-custom-phev-australia/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-ford-transit-custom-phev-...
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y agoOh neat, thanks for the heads-up.