Global advisory firm Advisian has released a paper exploring disruption from electric car uptake in Australia.
The report explores infrastructure scale, affordability of electric cars, cost of recharging and response from fuel production and refineries.
Advisian senior associate new energy Phil O'Neil said that while poor recharging infrastructure has left capabilities doubtful, Australia may follow similar patterns to its uptake of petrol vehicles.
“Early electric vehicle adopters will take home-charger cords with them to recharge en route.
“We also expect that electric vehicle charging stations will become common at workplaces and shopping centres, as employers and retailers take the opportunity to provide a perk for employees or attract shoppers.”
O'Neil said that when it comes to affordability, electric vehicles could save consumers' hip pockets.
“Electric vehicles will become increasingly attractive from an economic perspective.
“But we’re still looking at a couple of decades to change-over from full petrol to full electric, which reflects the normal turnover in the personal car fleet.
“However, the rapid adoption of car sharing and autonomous vehicles has the potential to reduce this period dramatically.”
The cost of recharging is also set to stay low.
“The convergence of technologies suggests that we will also be using our electric cars to store energy from household solar panels for later use, or even to sell it on the National Energy Market,” says O’Neil.
And when it comes the impact and response from fuel production and refineries, O'Neil believes that initially lower petrol prices could slow down electric vehicle uptake.
“Lower petrol prices could have some impact on electric vehicle uptake.
“But it’s not a sure thing.
“Refineries might instead use key components like naphtha and gas as oil petrochemical feedstocks instead of for petrol production.
“This is a process of “cracking” molecules to form the building blocks for plastics, resins and chemicals.”