THE average electric car isn’t yet up to the job of patrolling Stirling’s suburbs, the council’s security staffers reckon.

They want to stick with their beefier partly-petrol powered hybrid vehicles as the rest of the fleet goes electric.

Councillor David Lagan recently proposed a motion to investigate switching the city’s parking and security vehicles to an all-electric fleet as cars come up for regularly scheduled replacement. The passenger fleet is already heading towards 100 per cent electric by 2025. 

But the security team reckon they need to keep using their hybrid Toyota Camrys, which are replaced yearly. 

They cover 345km a day in peak times and get driven for both night and day shifts, leaving no time for a lengthy recharge, and the only electric cars that can handle that are the more expensive $55,000-plus models – out of the council’s price range. 

Cheaper juice

Instead just three of the smaller cars used by parking services will go electric. They’re replaced every two years, and going electric will cost an extra $10,000 per car once the higher purchase price is offset by the cheaper juice. That’ll cut about two tonnes of Co2 per year, since even when the power plant is coal-powered it’s still more efficient than petrol engines. 

$22,500 will also be spent on installing charging infrastructure. 

Cr Lagan noted: “The New South Wales government has announced it will give a $3000 rebate to the first 25,000 EVs sold in NSW under a cost of $68,000.

“I hope this action by councils like the City of Stirling will move the WA government to the same position as the NSW government and we can look at getting rebates for the purchase of vehicles,” especially given our state’s move into the rare earth minerals sector that are used in EVs. 

A big believer in electrics, Cr Lagan declared an impartiality interest stating he holds shares in a company that mines lithium, an element used in EV batteries. 

by DAVID BELL