Australia's multimillion dollar electric vehicle investments could leave some regions without enough charging stations while others are swamped with too many, a federal politician has warned.
Independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender issued the alert at the Batteries on Wheels Summit in Sydney on Wednesday, while calling for a national task force to co-ordinate infrastructure and ensure neither city nor regional locations were left behind in the electric transport revolution.
But federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen hosed down the suggestion at the conference, saying co-ordination between government branches was "already happening".
The Smart Energy Council event - an extension of the National Electric Vehicle Summit held in Canberra earlier this year - also heard Australia's uptake of electric vehicles had accelerated over the last six months and would reach a "tipping point" within weeks.
Ms Spender, who has campaigned for national electric vehicle policies, said governments in Australia had a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to make decisive change" in the field, with support from federal, state and local governments.
But she said investments from all levels of government could be confusing, with four councils spending money on projects in her electorate alone, and said Australia needed a single regulatory body.
"Today I'm calling for the federal government to establish a national electric vehicles take-off task force that will be responsible for co-ordinating the implementation of EVs and policies across federal, state and local governments," she said.
"This transition is too important and we have been left too far behind to let the overlaps and the under-laps between different layers of government hamper our progress.
"We are too far behind to let confusion and uncertainty about who has a mandate to act to stand in the way of progress."
Ms Spender said a national task force could provide "tailored advice to different parts of our country", from areas with apartment buildings to rural and regional Australia.
"The scale of the challenge we face is significant," she said.
But Mr Bowen told attendees significant progress had been made in electric vehicle adoption over the last six months, including bringing climate change and local government representatives into Energy Ministers Meetings.
"I'll always take an idea on board but the policy objective than Allegra is laying out we're already doing," he said.
"I think all that work is already happening and is encompassed in our national electric vehicle strategy, which the states are putting submissions into ... and local government has a role to play and will be respectful of that."
Mr Bowen said further changes to electric vehicle policies could come in 2023 following the National Electric Vehicle Strategy consultation paper that closed in October.
"We had 500 submissions which I've started working through," he said.
"They need to be worked through carefully. There's a lot of policy meat there."
Just 3.39 per cent of new cars sold in Australia in the year to September were electric vehicles but that figure jumped to 4.7 per cent in November, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
Boston Consulting Group managing director Anita Oh told the summit electric vehicle sales in Australia were getting closer to what she called "escape velocity".
"We're very close to that five per cent mark which is a really important tipping point that we've seen in other markets. That's probably a few weeks away - not very far at all," she said.
"The numbers are looking a lot better than they were a couple of years ago when it was one in 100 cars."
