THE home to Australia’s best-known annual festival of fuel-guzzling has become an unexpected leader in the electric car revolution.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Bathurst is already home to two electric car charging stations at Abercrombie House and behind the old TAFE building, and Bathurst Regional Council has done a deal with electric car giant Tesla to install a “supercharger” at the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre.
And this week Mount Panorama – Australia’s spiritual home of high-octane and high-decibel racing – will play host to a major Cities Power Partnership event aimed at accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles across the Central West.
There has also been discussion about the possibility of Mount Panorama one day hosting electric vehicle races that are already becoming popular overseas.
It all puts out region at the vanguard of a revolution that Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg declared earlier this year would rival the introduction of the iPhone.
And Bathurst’s electric dreams make both good economic and environmental sense.
In the past year, sales of electric cars in Australia jumped by 70 per cent and there will be an estimated 30 million on roads around the world by 2030 – a million of them here. Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past decade will know electric cars are here to stay. In fact, they’ve been here for a while.
Long before Henry Ford dreamed of his assembly line, electric cars were trundling around Europe and an estimated 30,000 were on the road at the dawn of the 20th century. But along came petrol and motorists quickly changed to cars that could offer almost limitless range – provided you could find somewhere to fill up – and the electric vehicle languished in the pages of history for almost 100 years.
But along came the Toyota Prius, the General Motors EV1 and later the Tesla Roadster, which were all important leaps forward in electric technology. Today, most manufacturers have an electric model in production or close to it, inspired both by increasing concern about climate change and legislation that will soon outlaw the sale of oil-powered cars in various countries.
The revolution is under way and Bathurst is already well place to take advantage.
The home of Australian motorsport could become the home of the electric vehicle.
.