Russell Klose is a veteran of the auto industry and an enthusiast of electric vehicles, currently based in Yackandandah in regional Victoria.
Klose appeared on Flow's Country Viewpoint this week to outline the benefits of electric vehicles for motorists who value a cleaner future for Australia's everyday road users.
Along with environmental benefits, Klose said one of the main reasons he endorses the uptake of EV's in Australia is because of significant savings motorists will make over the next handful of years.
"One of the key reasons going forward why people will need to make the switch...when I say will need, it will just be financially viable for them - they're predicting that by the time the standards are introduced in full by about 2028, we're going to be looking at around about $1,000 per year in fuel savings, you know, that's in your back pocket," Klose said.
"As time goes on, they're saying that over the life of the vehicle, that you'll probably save up to $17,000 in savings with a particular vehicle."
"So longer term, it's going to be much, much better for people...start bringing them out on the second-hand market and that means there'll be affordable clean vehicles for people who can't go out and buy a new car.
"Quite simply, it's going to be a win-win for the population, not immediately but longer term it's going to be a great thing."
Despite his appraisal of the EV movement in Australia, Klose admitted it is simply unrealistic to expect that all regional and rural-based motorists can get by on EV's in the present day.
"The reality in some parts of regional communities is, that's how it is, a pure EV would not work for them yet, we live in Yackandandah and there's odd-fold EVs, even ones with quite small batteries out in places like Walla and over at Bright and whatnot," Klose said.
Though, Klose did illustrate how farmers can benefit enormously by purchasing an EV alongside their regular vehicle.
"The average that they'll (farmers) travel per day is probably around 100 kilometres, maybe 200 and one of my customers was saying he's travelled 11,000 kilometres recently in his EV, you know, over the last six or seven months - it's costing a total of $80 to do that," Klose said.
"Others who are on farms in regional areas have bought EVs as an experiment and they find that a lot of their running around once again is only 50 to 100 kilometres per day and if they need to do a long trip and sort of take the cattle to market, then they'll hook a trailer onto the ute and off they go because they've still got their ute.
"The amount of money that they save by using their EV day to day around the farms and what not, it's well worth having the two vehicles now."
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