$3,000 Electric Vehicle Rebate for Victoria Residents

Unsure if this qualifies as a deal so posting as forum discussion.

Link to news article

More than 20,000 new car owners in Victoria will get a $3000 government subsidy if they buy a vehicle with zero emissions under a new plan.
The $3000 incentive will be available for vehicles purchased after Sunday May 2.

Ironic, since these subsidies are directly funded by the proposed EV tax (2.5 cent/km).

However this is good news for VIC purchasers of OzBargain's favourite EV - Tesla Model 3

$3,000 EV rebate for Victoria residents on eligible Model 3

What is the offer?
The Victorian Government has introduced an EV rebate of $3,000 on new electric vehicles with a vehicle subtotal (dutiable value) under $68,740. The Vehicle Subtotal can be found on the payment section of the Model 3 configurator by selecting ‘show details’. This offer is on a first come, first serve basis and is limited to 4,000 registrations in Victoria at this amount. A further 16,000 incentives will then be made available, but the Victorian Government has not yet confirmed details for this stage of the scheme.

Who is eligible?
Residents and businesses with the right to register in Victoria are eligible; limits may apply per resident and business.

How do I claim the rebate?
If eligible, the rebate will be applied to the final invoice prior to payment and deducted from the full Drive Away Price. If eligibility is unable to be confirmed, any quotations or invoices reflecting the rebate will become void.

Comments

  • +3

    Ironic, since these subsidies are directly funded by the proposed EV tax (2.5 cent/km).

    So you're ahead if you keep the car for less than 120,000kms…

    • +1

      This guy mathematics

    • The EV tax literally has the sole purpose of paying for these subsidies. It's (profanity) crazy.

  • +15

    Taxing EV then rebate, Vic government is policy bi-polar

    • +6

      Chuckle

      Such a predictable 'back-pedaling' manouvre from Mr Andrews to counter the virtually universal outrage over the ill-conceived '2.5 cents per km tax' he unceremoniously imposed on the owners of electric vehicles.

      $20,000 x $3,000 = $60 million.

      Without a doubt, this $60 million will henceforth be widely touted by the Victorian State Government as 'money spent by them to reduce emissions'. I guarantee that they will not mention the fact that it is actually all money they will reap from the owners of electric vehicles via their bizarre/unprecedented 'per km' tax. I feel sorry for peeps who were 'early adopters'/took the initiative and have already bought a fully electric vehicle or a hybrid vehicle. These poor saps will be slugged the 'taxi-type' (per km) tax forevermore, but will get no $3,000 to offset it. It's also sad news for any dealers selling new hybrid vehicles … because they do not qualify for this $3,000 rebate, and will thus all of a sudden become far less 'comparatively sellable'.

      No surprises here really (yawn), this is simply the opportunistic/whimsical manner in which 'teflon Dan' has always run his government. I suppose that like all state leaders who were in power during the thick of the COVID crisis he will be voted in yet again next term. History indicates that nothing boosts popularity like a huge crisis; oddly, almost irrespective of whether it was managed well or farcically!

      • I agree, the Vic government's policy on EV is terrible. Plus their terrible oversight that caused the second wave was lacklustre. But I'm quite happy with most of everything else.

        Not to introduce whataboutism, but have you been following the opposition? Or the NSW corruption (trams, lovers…) and our Prime Minister having no policies and taking no responsibility? (COVID assistance, Aus post comments, Laming, Craig Kelly, blocking corruption commission, deleting ASIC findings).

        Do not trick yourself into supporting one party. Only support policies. Otherwise we all become manipulated apologists.

        • You would be far more angry with the Victorian Government if you had been locked down for months by them last year.

          It is hard for anybody who did not go through this to grasp just how draconian and menacing that was.

          • +2

            @[Deactivated]: It wasn't too bad if you had income coming in.
            Need another lockdown now so we can continue to WFH.
            In time for Mother's Day again considering fragments found in the waste water.

          • +2
  • +4

    Comrade Dan is notorious for making up policy on the run and without thinking through the consequences.

  • +1

    Have they actually implemented the EV distance travelled tax? Or was that just another stupid talking point idea to placate the big oil companies and wasn’t really going to happen?

    • +1

      How are they going to implement this $/km EV tax anyway?

      In Vic, you only need to get a RWC each time you sell/buy a vehicle (may go years without a rego check). Is it going to be a self report method? Is it going to be added on at sale or transfer time like stamp duty? Are they going to change over to yearly rego checks on EV cars? How the hell are they going to keep tabs on it? There are going to be a lot of EV's with wound back odometers out there if this tax goes through.

      Oh, and for the record, giving $3,000 with one hand and taking it back with the other isnt really giving… This is more like a "loan".

      Might be good for buying an electric motorcycle where $3k is about half the cost of the bike… or is this one of those "*up to" type deals?

      • Good point re the km checks. NSW it’s not hard to do, but you don’t need a rego inspection (pink slip) until 5yo. Considering EVs are pretty much new, they’d even have to change the rules to inspect annually from the first year.

        I guess the other option is go 100% ‘big brother’ and a black box that transmits data on kms driven.

      • +1

        Eupho, re:

        'Have they actually implemented the EV distance travelled tax?'

        It has been 'passed', and will become efective from 01 July 2021.

        Pegasus, re:

        'How are they going to implement this $/km EV tax anyway?'

        Evidently every EV (including hybrids) owner will be required to take a photo of their OD every year, and submit that photo to VicRoads so that the corresponding charge can be added to the cost of their annual rego.

        • +1

          Seriously? What a stupid idea. I can’t believe it extends to hybrids as well.

        • +1

          Lol @ photo every 12 months… I would take 10 random photos in the first year and use them to submit over the next 10 years. Would have done 8,000km in 10 years according to the photos I would be submitting.

          And why are they applying it to hybrids?? They still pay for fuel. Is it at a reduced rate? That will kill hybrid sales, getting slugged at both ends.

          What about vehicle size? A 90kg electric scooter pays the same $/km tax as a Model X or a Cybertruck or Rivian (when/if these get released)? Hardly seems fair.

          They should just remove the tax off fuel and apply this $/km tax to all vehicles if they want it to be fair.

        • +1

          Evidently every EV (including hybrids) owner will be required to take a photo of their OD every year, and submit that photo to VicRoads so that the corresponding charge can be added to the cost of their annual rego.

          This is beyond stupid on so many levels.
          How will they verify the odometer read came from the vehicle with the VIN tied to the registration number?

          • +2

            @DoctorCalculon: Not to mention it isn’t terribly difficult to copy numbers and move them around in photoshop.

            • @Euphemistic: I think they are probably banking on the fact that it would be pretty daft to risk copping a criminal fraud charge/criminal record in a miserly effort to save a couple of hundred bucks each year. That, and the fact that in these 'ever increasingly transparent times' it is entirely possible that they could require any mechanics servicing EVs to record the OD reading on some sort of national register (in conjunction with the VIN#/etc.).

              I would strongly advise anyone planning to 'get around' this bizarre and misguided Danny Andrews 'Taxed Every Kilometre' policy on EVs not to do so by committing criminal fraud. Instead, rale against the counterintuitive anti-environmental tax in the hope that it will be abolished, or simply ditch your plans to buy an EV.

              If it was guaranteed to be 2.5 cents indexed at the rate of inflation forevermore, perhaps that MIGHT not be so bad, if you had solar panels on your house/could charge the car up for free. But there is no such assurance. Quite the contrary, it is almost guaranteed that as the uptake of EVs in Australia increases, so to will the rate of Dan's unprecedented 'per kilometre tax' (currently 2.5 cents; but nothing stopping it 'keeping pace' with any losses on petrol taxes the government 'suffers'). The 'long game' message is clear. Incentives initially/ostensibly offered to encourage the uptake of greener practices are soon thereafter rendered redundant (to varying extents) by the very same governments that used them to garner short-term popularity, via subsequently imposed taxes/charges on the very fruits of those same practices.

              The writing is on the wall re rooftop solar, as has been widely reported in the popular media recently. There are now proposals in place aimed at imposing a solar electricity 'feed-in-tax'; for no other reason than the fact that the feed-in rates have now been incrementally reduced to as ridiculously low as they could possibly be, but the government is still 'losing out' (compared to prior decades) on the 'electricity front', because self-sufficiency means they essentially have nothing to charge/tax.

              While it is not entirely the same thing, a somewhat similar thing happened re domestic water supply over the course of about 2.5 decades in Melbourne, beginning in the 1980s. Water in VIC used to be supplied for free to every house, by the state … it fell from the sky for free after all. Then this Eutopian reality (not actually a contradiction in terms!) was systematically chipped away at over the course of about 25 years, usually under the guise of 'eniron-ma-MENTAL-ism'; now we have the current system—whereby I can use less than 500 litres of 'mains water' per year, but am still charged thousands of dollars by a private company; much of which ultimately end up in the government's coffers.

  • +1

    To be fair, EV cars do need to pay their fair share for using / maintaining the road infrastructure, but how this is calculated equally I do not know.

    • -2

      State government isn't responsible for collecting these taxes. Roads are paid for by Federal funding. Victoria has no justification to charge this tax.

      • +1

        The vast majority of roads are paid for by local councils - from rates.

        • -2

          Thanks for a completely made up fact.

          • +2

            @[Deactivated]: Councils pay for the majority of roads:
            https://alga.asn.au/policy-centre/roads-and-infrastructure/r…

            It isn’t a made up fact. Literally the first google result for who pays for roads in Australia.

            • @mskeggs: Maybe I overstated with ‘vast majority’ but local roads are the majority of roads, but don’t get funded as much as state of federal roads on a per km basis.

              Last stats I saw from a few years ago showed states with the biggest proportion of roads finding. Followed by local and federal in last place.

  • +2

    To be also fair, let's not forget where your/our money is being spent; to wit, the subsidies for fossil fuels:

    https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australian-fossil-fue…

  • I would really like to get an EV, I'm not sure if I can get over the range anxiety though. I like taking long drives.

    • Start a (mobile) power charging station business

      • I know a guy who works with an EV racing team. They have a van full of batteries that goes along to races for recharging the race car.

    • "Innovators" often conveniently ignore the progress previously made in order to push a different technology. Take Apple and the iPhone. It's still not even close to an old Nokia for single-charge battery life. You could run a Nokia for about a week. The longest you can run a smartphone is maybe 2 days if you're lucky.

      Sure, we like our fancy displays and our fancy apps - but we really went backwards as far as phone technology went.

      Maybe it will be like that with electric cars. We'll all get pushed with these fancy toys that are more fun to drive around the city but will be completely and utterly useless of long regional drives. And perhaps that will be the compromise everyone is willing to make.

      Laugh all you like at that - but honestly I couldn't believe people actually wanted one of the original iPhones that couldn't even make half a day without needing a recharge - yet people went crazy for them all the same.

      • more fun to drive around the city but will be completely and utterly useless of long regional drives. And perhaps that will be the compromise everyone is willing to make.

        For most city dwellers a long country drive doesn’t happen very often. Then when you consider the family second car is often a little run around/commuter e-cars suit that task. You leave the house every day with a full charge and have enough range for daily duties. The other car will probably be fossil fuel powered until the range is comfortably 1000km to go country driving and charging is available everywhere you stay overnight.

  • +1

    That fall down those stairs must have caused more brain damage

  • Ironic, since these subsidies are directly funded by the proposed EV tax (2.5 cent/km).

    Exactly how will the VIC government collect this tax? At the charging stations?
    All the more reasons to get 3-phase power + solar + battery setup at home for charging your EV.

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