After many months of evaluating the submissions, the NSW Government has advised successful bidders of the results from the first round of the financial incentive to help fleets transition to electric vehicles.
The first round of bidding opened 13th December 2021 and closed on 4th February 2022. Unfortunately there’s not much detail to the announcement. Here’s what we found the Energy Saver website.
More than 900 BEVs are set to hit NSW roads following round one of the incentive, with 22 successful bidders – 17 individual fleets and 5 aggregators. Successful bidders will also receive financial support to co-fund chargers.
The fleet incentive payments are meant to partially cover the cost difference of owning a petrol/diesel/hybrid vehicle compared to owning an electric car (BEV or FCEV. Not hybrids).
Using the Total Cost of Ownership model, organisations can submit a bid in the reverse auction process to access funds to support the transition of fleets to zero emission vehicles and additional funding for charging infrastructure.
The government is targeting fleets because of their buying power and short ownership cycles. If fleets increase their intention to purchase EVs, manufacturers will be encouraged to increase supply of vehicles to meet the demand. Then, after the typical fleet ownership period of four years, the vehicles will be sold into the second hand market which will create more opportunities for consumers to buy safe, well maintained used electric vehicles to reduce their household emissions.
The government advises there will be multiple rounds to the funding and have advised Fleet Managers at various industry events that the process will be refined each time to allow the maximum return (dollar per CO2 reduction) for the NSW taxpayers. Round 2 is scheduled to open mid-2022.
More information is available by clicking here.
