Australia’s biggest electric vehicle show is poised to double in size after moving to a significantly larger venue and promising to deliver “several thousand” test drives.
The Everything Electric show, to be held at the Sydney Showground in February, will also feature vehicles from twice as many manufacturers in 2024 as well as solar and battery products for the first time.
Organisers say the show had to expand quickly to accommodate growing interest in renewable energy and electric transport, and its expansion is proof that Australians are catching up to progress overseas.
The Everything Electric show, previously known as Fully Charged Live, will be held after a record-breaking year in which Australian motorists bought three times as many electric vehicles as 2022.
Everything Electric chief executive Dan Caesar said the group was reluctant to leave its last venue that attracted almost 14,000 people in March but needed space for more products and interactive elements.
“One of the key features of our shows is test drives and being able to do that from somewhere like Sydney Showground is much easier and we think we can run several thousand test drives there,” he said.
“At our biggest show in the UK we managed to run between 2500 to 3000 test dries a day so we’re trying to get up to that scale as quickly as we possibly can in Sydney.”
Mr Caesar said taking the company’s show, based around its successful YouTube channel fronted by former Red Dwarf star Robert Llewellyn, to Australia had been a risk but interest in green power and transport had soared.
After finding access to electric cars for its show “constrained” in 2023, he said twice as many manufacturers had signed up to be part of the show in 2024 with “many more cars”.
“Tesla and BYD have really started to flex their muscles globally and in Australia and the whole market is being transformed,” he said.
“The Chinese brands, in particular, have now got product, they’ve got the ability to get that product into different countries and they’re doing it incredibly quickly compared to European, Japanese or American manufacturers.”
Australian motorists purchased more than 80,000 new electric cars between January and November, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, which represented an annual jump of more than 200 per cent.
Tesla remained the most popular electric vehicle brand in the nation and was followed by newcomer BYD, MG, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.
Mr Caesar said the Everything Electric event, from February 9 to 11, would also expand to feature electric bikes and scooters in 2024 as well as solar products, battery storage, and energy-efficient appliances.
Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
(Australian Associated Press)
