Electric Cars being crushed in Australia

I just watched "Who killed the electric car", and I'm astounded. I immediately went online to see if I could buy a plug in electric car in Australia, and the first thing I found was that Australia also appears to be killing inovation and the electric car as well!!

Article about an EV being crushed in Australia

What is going on in the world where we are crushing electric cars? Is this normal practice for petrol cars which don't meet a safety regulation, wouldn't it be fixed?

Looking for a response, I found:
Reply from the Minister for transport
Search DoTARS for Reva
Another comment by the minister

My thoughts, if the car doesn't meet full safety standards then fine, but it appears there is very little effort by the minister to even try to find out. Further, wouldn't you think motorcycles are much more dangerous when driven at 100+ km/h through Sydney traffic than an electric car driven at a top speed of 65km/h? I certainly don't agree that this car even looks like the average car, being a good sight smaller!

Finally, I would be more than happy to pay just AUD$15000 for a new car and then save 2500+ dollars per year by not paying for petrol, I'll wear a helmet if I have to, hey I wrote a motorcycle for 5 years. And the next generation of electrics like the Reva-NXG has a 200km range which would be perfect for me and you get that from a 6 hour charge.

And it's not like Australia would be going out on a limb here, you can buy them in the UK from http://www.goingreen.co.uk/ (expensive sports EVs are sold in California USA from http://www.teslamotors.com/ )

Why doesn't Australia support this inovation? Australia was made on the back on inovation, but now we appear to be happy to sit on our laurals and wallow in policy.

Some more info:
More info at www.carpages.co.uk
More info at blogs.smh.com.au
More info at www.drive.com.au

Comments

Anonymous said…
You got it Hutcho: the Oz govt appears set to kill the electric car off as quickly as possible. I wonder if they'll be so keen if the car is crushed publicly (in front of media) in Melb next Thursday afternoon?
Tuesday, November 07, 2006 12:35:00 am
JC said…
The sad reality is that worldwide, the governments, whose actions are supposed to be dictated by the people, no longer listen to the constituents, but rather to the corporations who give them money.

Adding to that, most of the populace believes that the government still has their best interests in mind, and believe what the government feeds them like sheep.

It is extremely hard to not only convince enough people to believe in a cause nowadays, let alone having the motivation to fight the good fight.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006 9:37:00 am
Anonymous said…
Hey Sime. I actually wouldn't expect anything less. Sadly, Australia was not made on the back of innovation, and this present government has done more than any other to underfund scientific research. Most bright scientists leave Australia young, and those that left are demoralized. Australia is a conservative country and we are all shit-scared of losing our "lifestyle". We should be embracing new technologies or even leading the world in their development. Even poorer countries in Asia now have larger, more successful alternative energy programs. We've seriously dropped the ball on planning for the future, and the EV thing is just another symptom of that. We're so rich, and we contribute so little.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006 4:39:00 pm
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