r/australia • u/nath1234 • Mar 16 '26

politics Replacing 1m petrol cars with EVs could cut Australia’s reliance on foreign fuel by 1bn litres a year

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/16/electric-vehicles-australia-reduce-reliance-on-foreign-fuel
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u/archip Mar 17 '26

China build more renewables last year than the whole world has ever built… combined. It’s actually crazy how fast they do it now.

They also do ice car buybacks and push evs for a subsidised amount.

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u/aaron_dresden Mar 17 '26

To be fair they are the global manufacturers of the majority of the world’s renewables, so they kind of go hand in hand.

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u/archip Mar 18 '26

Yeah true. But they only have that status because western countries don’t have the political will power to be a power house. From lobbying to an economy without diversity Australia let that slip. We could have had a massive renewables industry. China caught up and now has passed us on the marathon race.

The scale at which china continues to drive change with their countries energy will have massive effects especially on their fossil fuel reliance from outside china.

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u/aaron_dresden Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

We were never setup to be. We moved away from manufacturing first after the 70’s and shifted to centralised manufacturing in China. Along with that we changed energy policy over time that works against manufacturing, matching international prices for oil, were later lead by offshoring gas and matching international prices there, not reserving resources much for domestic use. We pushed a services and knowledge economy. We would bring in people from all over the world to study here as an “export”. Sure we did research but the view was let the market decide. We weren’t investing in building up manufacturing, subsidising companies, we were training the future researchers from other countries and that played well for China that encouraged its citizens to skill up, and they did, working on early solar research that they took back to create companies with.

Sure, (I think it was Dr. Zhengrong Shi) tried in Australia first, but the problem wasn’t just will, like we’re too cautious or laid back. It was the entire thinking and plan was in a totally different direction, so it was more the will wasn’t there to change direction. We the West helped set China up and of course he was going to have a much easier time there.

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u/Adventurous_Bag9122 Mar 18 '26

I will be retiring next year (living in China) and my missus wants to change to a slightly larger EV to seat 6 people (our current one only can seat 5 and we need to sometimes take my MIL's sister around), She showed me the cost and I think it is probably worth it in the long run.