Australia sets fuel efficiency standards

SYDNEY: Australia revealed plans on Sunday to set mandatory fuel efficiency standards, matching longexisting rules in other advanced economies in a bid to get highpolluting motorists off the road.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said a “New Vehicle Efficiency Standard” would be introduced by 2025, ending decades of debate about the policy.

“The United States has had a similar policy in place for fifty years,” Bowen said. “Australia still stands alongside Russia as one of the only advanced economies without the Standard.”

“This is costing families and businesses thousands of dollars at the petrol pump,” he said.

Australia currently has no mandatory fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles.

In a 2022 study, the Australia Institute think-tank suggested that the lack of an efficiency standard was costing the country billions of dollars on fuel, and meant vehicles were 30 percent more polluting than vehicles in the United States.

Advocates have blamed climatesceptic governments, as well as lobbying from oil refiners and car dealerships reforms.

“By giving Australians better choice of cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars, a strong fuel efficiency standard will cut household costs and clean up our air,” said Amanda McKenzie, chief executive of the Australian environmental lobby group the Climate Council.

They hope the new fuel standard will make petrol vehicles more efficient but also boost slow sales of electric vehicles.

According to International Energy Agency data, 33,000 electric vehicles were sold in Australia in 2022. That compares to 73,000 in the Netherlands, which has about eight million fewer people.

Australia also has a few thousand electric car charging points, a small fraction of the number in the United States or Europe.