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ABC News
2 days ago
- Automotive
- ABC News
Roadblocks remain for Aussie EV drivers despite sales rising as BYD battles Tesla for dominance
Australia's electric vehicle market is booming, but scratch the surface and there are still big roadblocks ahead. At a recent EV show in Melbourne, shiny new models and bold branding painted a picture of progress — yet behind the scenes, questions remained about affordability, infrastructure, and looming tax changes that could slow the momentum. "Next year, 70 new models hit the market and new brands come to the market as well," Ray Evans, the show's organiser, said. "So the consumers are the winners." Many of the new entrants are coming from one place: China. Chinese manufacturers like BYD and MG are carving out market share by undercutting legacy brands. The lowest-cost EV on the market sells for $30,000 before on-road costs. "We're starting to see the Chinese electric makers catch up, and that's another big factor because they're pitching pretty interesting electric vehicles at a lower price," Giles Parkinson, founder of The Driven, said. Tesla is still the biggest-selling EV maker in Australia at 4,589 cars sold in June. But once plug-in hybrids are included, BYD outsold Tesla in the first half of 2025. Despite the hype, electric vehicles still account for only a fraction of new car sales. In June, a record of just over 10 per cent (13,169 vehicles) of new car sales were electric, according to data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and Electric Vehicle Council, compiled by The Driven. If you include plug-in hybrids, electrified cars made up 15.2 per cent. While lower sale prices and lower running costs are enticing, there are some concerns about long-term reliability, resale value and local servicing support. Some potential buyers remain cautious, especially about charging their cars on longer trips. "We are still exploring, because we are very used to the petrol, you know," said one woman at the show. Others say they are ready — if the price and size are right. "We've driven a few, it's quite smooth, so I am happy to go with an EV," said another. "I don't ever have to go to a petrol station anymore. It's just about finding the right size of car." Australia's new vehicle emissions standards (NVES) introduced this year are expected to boost EV sales. This month, penalties kicked in for car makers who did not meet the new fleet-wide emissions targets. Basically, the NVES sets an emissions ceiling on the total car sales of each automaker, with heavy penalties for those who exceed it. There is a lot of debate about whether the standards are tough enough to meet previous forecasts about the take-up for EVs. To dodge fines, car makers will need to balance the sales of high-emission models like utes and 4WDs by selling hybrids and EVs to bring down their overall fleet emissions. Industry observers say those rules act as a powerful incentive for car makers that continue to sell petrol vehicles to shift to EVs and hybrids, even at a loss. "So you're starting to see them really push out some of their offerings at a much lower price just to sort of get that sales number up," Mr Parkinson said. "Because if they don't meet those sales numbers or those emissions standards — and it's an average, it's not applied to each individual car, it's an average over a year — they don't meet that average, then they have to pay another car maker credits. "And they'd rather keep the money themselves, even if they have to take a bit of a loss on their own cars." XPeng is another Chinese brand that sees Australia as an attractive market for EV car makers. "Australia doesn't have a domestic car industry that we need to protect, so a lot of those potential tariffs or barriers or boundaries for entry have gone," Jason Clarke, XPeng distributor and CEO of True EV, said. However, despite government rhetoric around the shift to EVs, Australia still lacks a national charging strategy — and consumers are bearing the brunt. "I travel to Canberra a bit from Sydney … I do find I have to plan for charging," said Mr Clarke. "I find the availability of charging publicly is OK, but the speed and the maintenance I am finding now is very problematic. "With fast charging, you can get a full charge in 20 minutes, but that's depending on the supply, and if you're getting 20 kilowatts being fed in or 150 is very, very different." There are other major roadblocks on the horizon for the EV market. Despite the high court ruling that Victoria's version of the EV road user tax was unconstitutional, such a tax in place of the fuel excise tax is considered inevitable by many, including the federal treasurer. "[A] road user tax placed on top of the already existing taxes really doesn't make sense," Scott Maynard, managing director of Polestar Australia, said. Also under threat is the fringe benefits tax exemption on EVs — a policy widely credited with driving recent growth. Mr Maynard is instead calling for the federal government to scrap tax breaks for utes. "That's an exemption that has been afforded to those vehicles since 1986 and costs taxpayers millions of dollars," he said. "It makes far more sense to put those subsidies towards vehicles that will create cleaner air, and also help our health and also put vehicles in the hands of customers that are cheaper to get into and cheaper to own." Reduced US government subsidies have already knocked Tesla's sales. But back at the Melbourne EV show, there was no official Tesla stall to guard against the growing threat to its market dominance in Australia. Instead, a diehard group of Tesla owners was happy to represent the company for free. "We are just a group of people who love our cars," Ross Hetherington, a long-time Tesla driver, said. Mr Hetherington was quick to defend the brand's controversial CEO, too. "I drive the car for the car. I mean, Elon Musk owns 12.5 per cent of Tesla. He's not… he… Tesla employs 150,000 people globally. He's one man." Asked if he would ever return to a petrol vehicle? "There is no way," he said.
CNBC
03-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
How tourists alerted this fund manager to sell Moncler before its stock plunge
In February, while luxury brand Moncler was still basking in the glow of a stellar 20% share price surge from January, fund manager Giles Parkinson made a contrarian move: he sold out. His decision, driven by subtle signals in tourist spending data, ultimately proved to be the right one. By the end of March, Moncler's shares had plummeted over 14%, and its subsequent first-quarter results in April confirmed a growth slowdown. MONC-IT YTD line "We sold out of Montcler," said Parkinson, head of equity at asset manager Trinity Bridge. "The reason, the proximate cause for that, in isolation, was a more cautious assessment of the future growth of the luxury industry than we had before." Parkinson's caution wasn't borne out of analyst reports, hushed industry whispers, or traditional financial modeling, but from what he called a "good short-term guide to luxury industry writ large": the spending patterns of international tourists. Tourism spending data as a proxy Parkinson, who manages about £5 billion ($6.7 billion) in assets across several funds, said his decision to close his Moncler position partly stemmed from data provided by Global Blue, a firm which helps tourists and retailers with tax refunds. Typically, tourists can claim a refund on the sales tax or value added tax component of their total bill, which is often significantly large when making high-end luxury goods purchases. "More than 50% of luxury goods purchases are made by people travelling," said Luca Solca, head of luxury goods equities research at Bernstein. "This was the situation pre Covid-19, and we are now back to it." Global Blue's data for Europe, which is a significant destination for luxury goods shoppers, indicated a year-on-year growth of +9% for February, a 10-percentage-point deceleration from the 19% recorded in January. "We found, on a month-to-month basis, that's quite a good proxy for almost the trading health of the overall luxury industry," Parkinson said. "There wasn't anything notable affecting the comparative period or calendar effects or travel disruption," Parkinson noted. This clean signal, free from obvious distorting factors, amplified its significance. Even Japan, another destination for luxury goods shoppers from China, "also showed a deceleration in February," albeit with some Chinese New Year timing nuances. The numbers, though, were unambiguous for Parkinson, telling a story which he expected the companies in the luxury goods sector to echo in a few weeks. The data-driven conclusion the Trinity Bridge fund manager had arrived at was also contrary to the market sentiment at the time, which was expecting a long rebound in the luxury sector after a trough at the end of 2024. "Our assessment was that investors were looking for acceleration. [Fourth quarter] 2024 being the bottom for luxury was maybe going to be mis-founded," Parkinson added. The divergence between his data-led view and market hopes was key to his decision to divest Moncler. Global Blue's weak February European shopper data released on March 5 did indeed work as a catalyst. Moncler's stock, which had traded buoyantly, reversed and gradually ended March with a painful 14.4% decline. Moncler confirms the trend Moncler's first quarter 2025 report on April 16, while not disastrous, painted a clear picture of a company navigating choppier waters. The group's global sales rose by 1% to 829 million euros ($936.4 million). Crucially, the flagship brand Moncler saw sales rise only 2% and its crucial Europe, Middle East, and Africa region fell by 1%. The softening trend in tourist spending lingered. Global Blue's March 2025 data, released on April 9th, showed European tax-free sales growth decelerating further to +7% year-on-year. Parkinson is also not alone in using alternative and publicly available data to make trading decisions, and its impact may not be limited to the luxury sector stocks. Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets analysts have also cited the use of tax-free shopping data in their assessments. "While this is not a direct read on cross-border transactions, we view it as a strong proxy for certain key European and Asian markets," said Daniel Perlin, analyst at RBC who rates fintech companies such as Visa , Mastercard , PayPal and Shift4 . Bernstein's Solca said that while Global Blue is the "absolute leader" in the tax-free shopping data, he cautioned that investors should use it as only one factor in making investment decisions. "They are one piece of a bigger mosaic, I would think," Solca added.
ABC News
02-06-2025
- Automotive
- ABC News
Will China's EV price war lead to cheapers cars in Australia?
Skip to main content The editor of "The Driven", Giles Parkinson, says these price discounts may be passed on to Australian consumers, but to a much lesser extent than we're seeing in China, and they'll take a while.
