Boost for second-hand EV market
A $10 million funding boost for Australia’s electric vehicle market is set to increase the number of second-hand electric car imports and slash entry prices for buyers.
Photo: AAP
Tasmanian start-up Good Car Company received the funds from Mike Cannon-Brookes’ philanthropic fund Boundless, in addition to an undisclosed sum from Canva co-founder Cameron Adams and his wife Lisa Miller.
The investment could allow the company, the largest importer of second-hand electric vehicles in Australia, to bring in 2000 vehicles a year – 10-fold increase.
Good Car Company co-founder and director Anthony Broese van Groenou said he and co-founders Anton Vikstrom and Sam Whitehead were excited by the prospect of bringing more electric vehicles into Australia.
“(The investment) helps us get a lot more affordable cars out there to a lot more people,” he said.
“We’re energy nerds and our goal is to decarbonise transport. Ideally, we’d have more people catching public transport and riding bikes but for a lot of people, a car is an essential part of their life.
“Having affordable electric cars available is important as well as addressing those supply chain issues.”
Broese van Groenou said Australians interested in buying electric vehicles often struggled to find available models, which led the company to import used vehicles from the United Kingdom and Japan.
“Those are markets where there is a prioritised supply of electric vehicles,” he said.
“We’re a relatively small country at the end of the supply chain and we need to do everything we can to boost their availability.”
Broese van Groenou said Good Car Company ran battery diagnostics and provided buyers a warranty based on age before selling vehicles.
Prices for the vehicles, which range from the Nissan Leaf to Peugeot e-expert van, started at $22,000 compared to almost $50,000 for the cheapest new electric vehicle in Australia.
Boundless chief executive Eytan Lenko said the organisation’s $10 million investment would boost EV adoption and bridge “the growing gap between demand for EVs among Australians and the supply available within an attainable price point”.
Despite constraints, figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries this week revealed a record number of Australian consumers bought electric vehicles in September.
More than 7000 battery-powered vehicles were sold in Australia last month, adding to the annual tally of more than 27,700.
Electric vehicles currently make up 2.7 per cent of vehicle sales in Australia.
-AAP
