The NSW Government has updated its Electric Vehicle Strategy, with more focus on charging access, regional routes, tourism corridors, and the sort of practical groundwork that might allow EV ownership to function like normal life rather than an endurance sport. More chargers. Better coverage. More workforce training. All very sensible.
More surprising is the FCAI suddenly sounding as though it has read the room for a change. It has found a market hungry for change, spurred on by Trump’s insanity in the middle east.
Tony Weber, chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, welcomed the strategy and said fast, reliable, cost-effective recharging infrastructure remains the key to building consumer confidence. Quite right too. It is just rather rich hearing that from an organisation which has often seemed happier treating EV uptake like a regulatory headache than an obvious market direction.
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ABOVE: Existing EV charging images from the GCB library, showing public chargers and an EV plugged in and getting on with the job.
The room has changed and the FCAI has noticed
Still, let us not be too churlish. If the lobby group for legacy brands has finally grasped that people without off-street parking cannot be expected to survive on vibes and a powerpoint slide, then progress is progress. One imagines a few boardrooms have looked at sales charts, looked at China, looked at the charging map, and had a tiny administrative epiphany.
I nearly spat out my white wine spritzer when Weber said the NSW Government recognises that people without easy home charging access cannot be left behind. That is the point, and it has always been the point. EV adoption was never going to be solved by plonking a few chargers in wealthy postcodes and calling it a revolution. If families in apartments, regional towns, and travel corridors cannot charge with confidence, then the whole thing becomes a metropolitan parlour game for people with solar panels, and home batteries in their cosy double garage.
Regional charging is not a luxury
This part of the strategy puzzle matters more than the usual ministerial click bait. Charging access in regional areas is not a nice little extra. It is the difference between an EV being a real household option and a moral hobby. Tourism routes matter too. Nobody wants to spend a long weekend white-knuckling the battery gauge while some fossil flog on breakfast television cranks out range anxiety tropes as though it were still 2017. Or, in the conservatives’ case, 1950.
The workforce element matters as well. NSW says it will invest in a skilled EV workforce, which should improve servicing access and support more specialised jobs. Again, sensible, after the Howard years destroyed TAFE and all but killed off any kind of experience. You cannot ask the market to change and then act stunned when it needs technicians who know one end of a battery pack from the other. Dealers, independents, roadside support, training providers, all of that has to grow up together.
The snark writes itself
FCAI says its members are already investing in training, and perhaps some of them are. Marvellous. But the more interesting thing here is the tone shift. The same crowd that has spent years muttering incoherently about mandates while pretending the old order had decades left, now seems keen to talk about charging confidence and future demand. Better late than never. Nothing clears the sinuses like watching buyers drift toward EVs while governments start building the infrastructure that langished in the lost decade until a coal and gas fired Liberal government shitshow.
NSW is doing what governments should have done earlier and more aggressively. Build the network and the skills base. Make the transition easier for normal people, not just early adopters with designer wallboxes. As for the FCAI, welcome aboard. Better late than never, though some of us might be forgiven for raising an eyebrow high enough to need planning approval.
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Alan Zurvas is the founder and editor of Gay Car Boys, Australia's leading LGBTQI+ automotive publication. Before launching GCB in 2008, Alan's automotive writing was published in SameSame.com.au and the Star Observer. With over 16 years of hands-on car reviewing experience, Alan brings an honest, irreverent voice to every review — championing value and innovation over brand loyalty.
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