Australia announces policy to boost electric car sales

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced plans to encourage people to buy electric vehicles but won’t be subsidizing the purchases. Morrison says the price of the technology will reduce in time. Instead, his conservative government will partner with private enterprise to accelerate the rollout of 50,000 charging and hydrogen refueling stations. It expects that would result in 30% of new passenger and light commercial truck sales in Australia to be battery electric or plug-in hybrid electric by 2030. Electric vehicle groups said the policy wouldn’t be enough to improve sales. Opposition political leaders said they would lower taxes to make such vehicles cheaper for buyers.