Tonight, Australia’s newest Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese has announced the ministerial positions the Labor party. While there are certainly many important portfolios, one important to our audience, will be the new Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen.
Bowen has been very public about his love for electric cars and drives the most popular EV in Australia, the Tesla Model 3.
Having politicians in a decision making positions, be educated about the benefits of an electric vehicle ownership can only be a good thing for EV adoption in Australia. A lack of models to choose from, the higher up front cost, gaps in charging infrastructure are all very solvable problems with the right policy positions.
If you’ve got 25minutes, I strongly encourage you to take a listen to Chris Bowen on The Driven podcast from a couple of months ago. During the show, he details his experience with the Model 3 and Labor’s EV policy, which helped them achieve victory in the 2022 federal election.
Back in November 19, Bowen was pictured in front of a Tesla Megapack, showing his support for renewable energy storage, explaining that this is one of our biggest economic, job creating opportunities.
The site in NSW is a 50MW/75MWh battery project at Transgrid’s Wallgrove substation in Western Sydney.
One of the clear differences between the Coalition and Labor, was their policies around renewable energy targets and support for electric vehicles. With Bowen as the Climate Change and Energy Minister, expectations will be high and while Labor confirmed an outright win today, many policies will likely require careful negotiation with a cross bench of independents and green candidates to pass.
While Bowen may indeed by Mr Musk’s new best friend, his interest in other EV brands was on display recently at Parliament house when he took a look at Australia’s own Janus Electric. This company is retrofitting traditional diesel trucks with electric powertrains. The coalition didn’t bother attending.
