TL;DR: AUD 19,900 driveway (means taxes, registration etc included), or about US$14k. The main limitation is the 220 km (135 mi) range, which is fine for a city runabout but not great for road tripping.
€12k in France (where i am) can't get you any new car, even the cheapest ICE Dacia is more expensive than that now.
There is also the Renault Twingo which is in the same class.
That said we do still have a hefty “luxury car tax” for anything over $80k, which is a hangover from when there was an industry here. The government aren’t going to lift that any time soon.
Its current function is to select for expensive trucks over expensive sedans, because trucks are “commercial” and exempt, making our roads less safe overall. Thanks government.
Another part of the picture is that you can more often get away with buying a truck “for business” if you’re a small business-person, regardless of whether it actually ends up being used for that.
And by ‘unsafe’ I mean for pedestrians and they contribute to the vehicle-size arms race on the roads, they’re generally very safe for the occupants.
Also, I think you are underestimating the sheer size and desolate spreaded-outness of Australia.
That said, coupled with home solar to power it, this is a very cheap way to get on the road and I will likely go this direction in future - one of these for the city and something a bit bigger/more rugged to go bush once in a while.
Or: a $2000 Corolla and the rental home you’re already in.
But not that I was off on the price of a houses by a factor of three.
You can get a run down two bedroom weatherboard round the corner from my two bedroom rental unit for around the $1.2 million mark.
BARGAIN!
I want solar and a battery (don’t have it yet, it’s on the list) to cut my energy bills and guard against power cuts anyway.
So neither of these things is an ‘extra’ expense for me getting a small EV.
There are a total of 5 corollas available in Australia for $2k or less. Each one is ratty, beat up and 19+ years old, I wouldn’t want to chance taking any of them on the freeway, and you’d still have to fuel them.
You’re good mate, you’re rich.
Choose a different car for under $5000 then.
It’ll still be cheaper than having to buy a new car, plus house, plus solar & battery.
Also won’t work for anyone living in a unit / flat / appartment, whether they rent or own.
Then why respond to a post in which I say what I'm thinking about doing? You don't care.
> You’re good mate, you’re rich.
I'm not rich, I'm just a homeowner, 66% of the Australian public live in houses they own, so your cost-of-owning-a-house discussion points are irrelevant to most people.
> It’ll still be cheaper than having to buy a new car, plus house, plus solar & battery.
Which most people won't have to do, as they live in houses they have already bought, solar is subsidised, and is useful far beyond EV charging so a lot of people already have it. Plus maybe they can take advantage of the free electricity period tariffs on offer in a lot of states now. Makes this car very cheap for a huge number of people. And that's before we get into the possibilities of novated leasing with zero FBT on EVs.
> Choose a different car for under $5000 then.
No thanks, they're still all shitboxes at that price and they still need to be fuelled. Given that's probably in the range of $2-3k per year on average mileage and current fuel prices, and that I wouldn't expect a $5k car to last all that long, it'll be pretty quick to make up that price difference.
> Also won’t work for anyone living in a unit / flat / appartment, whether they rent or own.
Charging at public points, in car parks etc is still cheaper than petrol mate.
Seriously, why so weirdly bitter about this?
No.
You can pry my turbo diesel work van from my cold dead hands.
Stop fetishizing a way to transfer energy to kinetic energy.
Depends whether you're taking the Birdsville track or the Bibbulmun track really.
The shorter one can be done a on a red postie bike, the longer one won't even need that :-)
But I haven’t got on my bike for a few years now because at the moment all my spare energy goes on managing our plot. There’s always something needs moving, sawing, building, repairing, digging… So I’ve gone from having a (pudgy) cyclist’s physique with very strong calves to more of a farmer’s build with bigger arm and shoulder muscles than I’ve ever had before and a big ‘ol belly.
But in all seriousness I also like to go remote once in a while and access national parks. I’m not going to be hooning it round destroying dunes, but getting to beautiful places like Cape Peron is tough without a the right vehicle.
> without the right vehicle
A loong time ago (late 1970s) I got to traverse the horizontal falls a couple of time in a home made sea kayak after being dropped off "nearby" (and later picked up again) by an old pearling lugger .. pretty low carbon effort that one, just a lot of paddling (and fishing, and digging for fresh water, and dodging the odd shark and salty croc).
Passed an old guy on a pushbike with a trailer on the nullabor in 2010 and just thought “wow, that’s commitment”
The main downside on long trips is the DC is chamedo, not standard ccs, so there are fewer locations and they are sometimes broken or full.