Oh dear. Oh deary, deary me.
Australia has 29 days of petrol. Twenty-nine. Not months. Days. Less than a month of juice before the servos turn into very expensive car parks. We import 90 per cent of our fuel. Ninety. Per. Cent. And 20 per cent of the world’s oil flows through a strait so narrow you could almost swim across it, currently being blockaded by people who aren’t particularly fond of us.
But please, do tell us more about how impractical electric vehicles are. We’ll wait.
The Strait of Hormuz is chokers full of oily boats going nowhere. China has banned avgas exports. Petrol has jumped 50 cents a litre in a fortnight. The government is releasing emergency fuel reserves, which sounds reassuring until you remember that our “reserves” would embarrass a corner shop. We’re supposed to hold 90 days under International Energy Agency rules. We haven’t been compliant since 2012. Fourteen years of shrugging and hoping nothing bad happens. Brilliant strategy. The conservatives said, “hey let’s store our supply in the US! Fab idea.” How’s that working out?
Meanwhile, 13 per cent of new cars sold in Australia last year were electric. Those owners are at home, plugged into the wall, watching the chaos unfold with the serene smugness of people who saw this coming from approximately a decade away.
The Numbers, Since Apparently Nobody Checked
Let’s do some arithmetic, shall we?
Australia’s fuel reserves: 29 days of petrol. 26 days of diesel. 29 days of jet fuel. That’s not a strategic reserve. That’s a long weekend with anxiety.
Fuel import dependency: 90 per cent. We shut down all but two refineries because the economics didn’t work. The economics now involve panic-buying and rationing. And, who are bitching the most? The same wankers who cancelled renewable projects and stranded Australia on the wrong side of a wasted decade of progress.
Strait of Hormuz: 20 per cent of global oil consumption passes through a 33-kilometre-wide channel between Iran and Oman. Twenty per cent. Of everything. Through one tiny gap. What could possibly go wrong?
EV market share: 13 per cent of new car sales in 2025, up 38 per cent on the previous year. Every single one of those vehicles is completely immune to whatever Iran, China, or OPEC decide to do this week.
But sure. Range anxiety. That’s the real problem, just not one being felt by EV drivers, so, eat a bag of dicks!
Remember When We Were “Alarmists”?
For years, anyone who suggested that maybe, possibly, it wasn’t ideal to build an entire civilisation around a liquid that comes from the world’s most unstable regions was dismissed as a hysterical greenie.
“We’ll always have oil,” they said, confidently, while not building any refineries. These are the same people who convinced us paying three bucks for a 600ml bottle of water that fell from the sky was kosher.
“The market will sort it out,” they said, as the market sorted out that refining in Australia was unprofitable and shut everything down. Like our car manufacturing, it does rather leave us exposed if those boats that float beautifully, can’t actually move.
“EVs are too expensive,” they said, while petrol hit $2.50 a litre and climbing.
The International Energy Agency warned us. Defence analysts warned us. Energy economists warned us. We held approximately zero days of extra reserves and crossed our fingers.
So here we are. Chris Bowen on television explaining that we’re “nowhere near” running out of fuel while simultaneously releasing 20 per cent of our strategic stockpile. That’s the face of a man who knows exactly how close “nowhere near” actually is.
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ABOVE: EV drivers have the last laugh
The Ute Defence Crumbles
Ah yes, the utes. The sacred Australian ute, without which no tradie can function and no farmer can farm. Surely EVs can’t replace those?
BYD Shark. Ford Ranger PHEV. LDV eT60. Electric HiLux incoming. The excuses are evaporating faster than our fuel reserves.
“But I need to tow things!” Yes, and the electric F-150 Lightning tows 4,500 kilograms and a Tesla towed a plane. More than your Ranger. Next.
“But there’s no charging in the bush!” There’s also, increasingly, no petrol in the city, or in the bush. At least you can put a solar panel on a shed. You cannot put a refinery on a shed, shutting those smart arse “commentators” down and their smarmy, gin-soaked wake.
The cognitive dissonance is genuinely impressive. People simultaneously complaining about fuel prices and refusing to consider vehicles that don’t use fuel. It’s like complaining about the cost of cigarettes while rejecting the concept of not smoking.
National Security is a Rooftop
Every solar panel is a teeny little power plant powered by the sun, not an oil field that any old despot can blockade. Every home battery is a strategic reserve that doesn’t require the permission of a sleazy pollie on the grift. Every EV on the road is one less vehicle held hostage by events in the Middle East. Some EVs can even act as mobile batteries. You can’t run your stinking diesel ute to power your tellie can you?
This isn’t tree-hugging. This is basic strategic common sense. The kind of thing you’d expect a country to think about before it closed all its refineries and started importing 90 per cent of its transport fuel from overseas from greedy oil robber barons who pay no tax.
But no. We had to learn the hard way. We always have to learn the hard way.
Australia has approximately 1.4 million solar installations. We have some of the best renewable resources on the planet. We could have been energy independent a decade ago if we’d not been shackled by coal-wielding drunks staggering into Canberra with pockets full of lobbyists’ grift. Instead, we spent that decade arguing about whether climate change was real while China quietly cornered the battery market and the EV supply chain.
Smart.
We Bloody Told You
This isn’t a light spot of gaslighting (pardon the pun). Well, alright, it’s a wee bit of gloating.
Fine, it’s a lot of gloating. We’ve earned it. All that moaning and bitching and delaying, and a decade of lost renewables progress only to find that all of that base-load power bullshit won’t actually matter if there is no power at all. Base-load power was always a lazy bullshit argument, pushed by lazy uneducated yobbos falling about after 15 too many beers. They’re the same dangerous morons who don’t vaccinate their children then complain about measles outbreaks. They bitch about job losses in the coal industry, forgetting that jobs won’t matter if there is no food to eat.
Then that chestnut that makes you want to slam your nuts between two bricks: “but what about long trips” and “where will you charge it” and “the grid can’t handle it”. Well sunshine (another Aussie pun thrown in for good measure) who is now watching petrol station queues stretch around the block while their car charges from the sun for approximately zero cents per kilometre? We are. EV lovers.
The grid, incidentally, is handling it fine and South Australia frequently has free power during the day owing to an oversupply of renewable energy. CRIKEY! It’s the oil supply chain that’s gone badly tits up. Strange how that never makes the evening news and is why we gave up on free-to-air tellie years ago.
Twenty-nine days. That’s what stands between Australia and transport armageddon. Less than a month. Less time than a mortgage application takes. Less time than a minor renovation. Less time than it takes to get a passport.
And every EV owner saw this coming. We said it. We wrote about it. We were told we were being dramatic.
The tankers are stuck. The prices are spiking. The reserves are being raided after being sold off to level price spikes caused by another war in Ukraine. Well what a shitshow!
(The Australian Labor government participated in a 2022 coordinated international release of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to stabilise global prices, releasing a portion of the 1.7 million barrels purchased in 2020 by the previous government. This action, mandated by the IEA, was not a complete sale, but part of a global, managed release.
Key Details regarding the oil reserve: The 1.7 million barrels of oil were purchased by the Morrison government (Coalition) in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to fill a storage gap, with the fuel stored in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Albanese government released this oil in 2022 as part of an International Energy Agency (IEA) coordinated action to counteract price spikes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with the move described as a “release” rather than a fire-sale of the entire asset. Opposition figures like Matt “Sooty” Canavan have criticised this action, arguing it reduced Australia’s already limited strategic fuel security. Yeah Sooty, get back in your box you cringey little sycophant.
As of March 2026, the government has been focusing on using domestic fuel reserves to handle shortages caused by geopolitical instability and panic buying. How’s that working out for us?)
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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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