Australia at “tipping point” for switch to electric trucks as half its diesel fleet nears replacement

Australia is at a tipping point for electrifying transport as more than half of the country’s trucking fleet is due for replacement, and needs to act to avoid a repeat of the current fossil fuel crisis, a leading transport and energy expert says.

Bruce Hardy, the head of Energy Futures Foundation, an independent not-for-profit and non partisan group focused on transport and energy, says Australia would not be facing the fossil fuel supply issues it is now had it learned and acted on the hard lessons of the last two crises. 

“This was the same pattern during [the] COVID [pandemic in 2020]. It was the same pattern when Russia invaded Ukraine [in 2022],” Hardy told the Smart Energy Conference in Sydney on Wednesday.

“The fundamental point here is that we are a small island nation at the end of very long supply chains, as our politicians are very glad to tell us, and we are importing fuel to power the arteries of our economy, instead of relying on the electrification potential within our fleet.”