An Australian bank has decided the future is electric and will stop approving personal loans for new petrol and diesel-powered cars from 2025 onwards.
Electric vehicles (EVs) comprised a tiny two per cent of vehicles sold in Australia last year. That is a drop in the ocean compared to 17 per cent in Europe and 13.3 per cent in China, and with high starting prices coming in at $47,000 and a lack of charging stations Down Under, potential buyers still look for any alternatives to those on offer from major EV manufacturers.
The customer-owned Bank Australia wants to change that in its drive to reduce carbon emissions, even as the price of EVs climbs around the world as manufacturers look to profit from government incentives to get drivers to dump their gas models.
“We think that the responsible thing for us to do next, is to ensure that our vehicle lending doesn’t lock our customers in to higher carbon emissions and increasingly expensive running costs in the years ahead,” Bank Australia Chief Impact Officer Sasha Courville said in a statement seen by Fox News.
A pedestrian walks past a Tesla Inc. service center in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, April 12, 2021. Tesla and the electric-car industry generally thrive in the worlds richest nations. Not so in Australia, where even farm tractors outsell EVs two to one. (Brent Lewin/Bloomberg via Getty)
“Ultimately, our announcement today is the beginning of a conversation with our customers and a signal to the wider market that if you’re considering buying a new car, you should think seriously about an electric vehicle – both for its impact on the climate and for its lifetime cost savings.”
Bank Australia, which also recently set a target date of 2035 to achieve net-zero emissions, said it will still offer loans for second hand gas cars “until there is a viable and thriving market for electric vehicles.”
“While we will cease car loans for new fossil fuel cars from 2025, we are deeply aware that we need to support people not yet able to afford an electric vehicle while the market grows,” Courville said.
The Aussie push to get more people driving electric vehicles comes as the Biden administration’s own drive to the same end has hit a roadblock: EV prices have surged from a year ago, as Breitbart News reported.
Ahead of the passage of the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act, Ford Motor Company and General Motors raised the prices of their electric vehicles, eliminating the potential benefit of the bill’s $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit. https://t.co/AobBgcxvqZ
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 19, 2022
The average sticker price for an EV in the United States in May was up 22 percent from a year ago, to about $54,000, according to research from data and analytics firm J.D. Power, cited by the Wall Street Journal.
The price leap follows President Joe Biden’s call back in March for Americans to purchase an electric car to escape high gas prices, promising to “double down” on his pursuit of green energy.
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