Bill Shorten's plan for electric vehicles to make up half of all Australia's new cars by 2030 - as well as subsidising a new electric car manufacturing industry - could end up costing the country billions.
While the Opposition leader has pitched his electric vehicle policy as a way to tackle climate change, encouraging drivers to switch from petrol cars has a huge financial downside that taxpayers will be forced to cover.
Labor's National Electric Vehicle policy will set a target of 50 per cent of new cars bought in Australia being electric vehicles, pledging to increase sales from 2,500 per year to about 600,000 within ten years.
The party claims they do not intend to directly subsidise electric cars, instead removing barriers to purchasing them - but the Government and motoring industry experts have criticised the plan, saying it was uncosted and under-developed.
The government also points out that increasing the number of electric cars would dramatically increase the demands on Australia's electricity grid - which is at least 90 per cent powered by carbon-producing coal anyway.
This week, Mr Shorten made the extraordinary claim while speaking to Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS FM that electric cars can be charged in eight minutes.
Mr Shorten said it could take 'eight to ten minutes' to charge an electric car, depending on how flat the battery was.
While in fact some can take 14 hours to recharge, and even fast charging stations take about 30 minutes to fill a fully depleted electric car battery to 80 per cent.
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