澳大利亚电动车普及或影响利率

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Welcome to the Bloomberg Australia podcast. I'm Chris Berg coming to you from Melbourne.

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The Iran war has sent fuel prices jumping again, and Australians are responding by changing what they drive with electrified vehicles now making up more than half of new car sales. But this is about more than what's sitting in our driveways. [music] This week we ask Bloomberg Sydney-based economist James McIntyre what Australia's EV revolution could mean for the economy and ultimately interest rates. James, welcome back to the podcast. [music]

Thanks for having me, Chris.

Uh so Tesla, BYD, uh Zeekr, the these names are becoming almost as familiar on Australian roads as Toyota and Mazda. Just how quickly have electric vehicles gone from niche to mainstream in Australia?

Yeah, well, it's been really quite interesting. There's a few more names coming out there as well like Jaecoo and a whole proliferation of Chinese brands. And and and what's really happened here is we've seen especially over the course of the last 6 months or so, 2026 seems to have been a year where EV and battery EV vehicles in particular have really surged in Australia. We've seen this fuel price spike come into the Australian economy over the as a result of the Iran war since the big you know, since February.

Uh energy prices uh fuel prices have skyrocketed, uh but what we've but what we've seen is we've seen the supply of EVs from China come in. And so consumers have have seen the sticker price at the petrol station and they've also seen the sticker price at the EV dealership and it's really resulted in this this rapid I guess shift that's that's happened as demand and supply have have all come together at the same time.

Have you made the plunge, James, or are you still polluting the the streets of Sydney every weekend.

No, we're actually thinking of of making the plunge. We're going to place an order an order soon, which is Yeah, which is which is quite interesting and going for going for a Chinese EV. So that's that's a big a big step and it's a step that's going to result in a shift in the in the way our household energy and transport expenditures are moving.

You talked about fuel prices. If you're if you're filling up a relic of an internal combustion engine this week, you're you're paying I think around two bucks a liter. That's that's well above where prices were before the US attacks on on Iran. Is that shock at the Bowser the main reason Australians are suddenly buying so many EVs?

Well, the shock at the Bowser is is is real. Now, we did get a couple of months there where the government's fuel excise discount helped cushion some of the blow and that sort of gave us a little bit of a while to all adjust and get ready for what's to what's been coming. And and now we're seeing as those excise reductions have moved away, we're seeing that petrol price continuing to remain quite elevated. But it's Yes, you're right.

It's not the only reason. We've got a major surge of supply coming out of China of in terms of battery electric vehicles at a price that is vastly more competitive than many of the internal combustion engine offerings from some of the the traditional or more legacy auto suppliers into the Australian market and many markets around the world and consumers are responding to that shift.

So, I guess the big question is whether this is a lasting structural shift or just a knee-jerk reaction to the war. James, do you think we're looking at a genuine turning point for Australia's car industry here.

Well, it does seem to be um a turning point for some of the auto makers who have who have exited the market, but the industry body does think that it is a permanent structural shift. And the reason for that structural shift is is the price. We've seen the efficiency of of the electric vehicle makers in terms of the the power outputs from batteries getting better range. Range is now there and price is now at a point where it is incredibly competitive.

And as a result, consumers are you know, seeing those bells that bells are shock price from the Iran war and and causing them to that's causing to take a look at the alternative and when they do see that alternative, they're seeing that that there is a a very very high quality offering available at a very economic price point for them not just when it comes to purchase, but when it comes to operating costs down the line.

So, you're an economist, obviously. These These changes in consumption trends are always of big interest to you and you've just done some big picture research on all this. There's something I'm really curious about. House prices are falling. We've had three interest rate hikes this year and yet Australians are splashing out on new cars with massage seats and some with built-in karaoke machines, I believe. Where's all the money coming from?

Well, that's right. So, one thing and we've we've seen a lot of research done. Central banks do it all around the world and the RBA has done their own research on on the wealth effect and how that impacts and how consumers are feeling about their house prices and their overall wealth and looking at that their their pocketbook and their balance sheet and deciding whether they're going to take the plunge and splurge.

And and the RBA's analysis, they find that in particular, uh you can put it down to I'd put it down to three C's. Three sectors in particular where the wealth effect does really hit. Consumers changes in asset prices do really affect consumption. Those three C's being cars, clothing, and couches. The furniture sector being some of the lumpier items that when people are feeling wealthier, they go and purchase. But at the moment, what we've got is we've got house prices in Australia's capital cities have been declining declining now for a number of months.

At the aggregate level, Sydney and Melbourne were first just before Christmas and early in the year, they began to decline. And the RBA's on the RBA's numbers, they find that for a 1% increase in housing wealth, you get a a boost to consumer spending of 0.16%. Now, if we take that in reverse, the almost 4% nearly 5% decline we've got in house housing wealth through house price declines should result in a nearly 0.8% hit to consumer spending.

But instead, we've got this with that concentration of that hit to consumer spending in those three C's and cars in particular. And instead, what we've got is we've got vehicle sales really jumping up in the first half of the year with a electric vehicles really leading the charge.

Of course, they are saving money as well. Ultimately, in the long run, I guess that's that's the way they they look at these purchases. Obviously, a clear advantage of this shift is that Australian households become less exposed to volatile global oil prices. The Middle East, of course, has given us a a pretty vivid [clears throat] reminder of that risk this year. But how significant could that kind of protection become?

Could Could the shift to EVs materially change the way future oil shocks hit Australian households?

There's been a Australia is a is a big net energy exporter to the to the rest of the world. And so, you know, the economy as as a whole benefits when energy prices rise. And And the big benefits come through in terms of gas prices for the gas exports, coal prices. We do export a little bit of oil, but on the flip side, we the fuels that we use, the automotive fuels, we import a lot of those in particular, around 80 to 90% of our consumption of those fuels is imported from Asian refineries.

And so, while the economy benefits, consumers get this hit. Over the long term, if we look at how many liters of automotive gasoline, or petrol as we would call it in Australia, is is used by Australian households. And if we divide it by the population, we find that you know, the average person is using 3% less petrol per year. Going over the last