Meet the Owner EV Day comes to Kiama

With the average price of fuel rising to 185.9c today, according to NSW Fuel Check, plenty of interest is expected in this Sunday’s Meet the Owner EV Day in Kiama. 

Electrify Kiama – a group of volunteers inspired by Electrify 2515 – will host the free community event from 11am-2pm at Finding Fillmore’s, with EV owners on hand to answer questions about their cars, including models from Tesla, Polestar, BYD, MG, Geely, Volvo and Fonz. Visitors can drop in to chat about everything from towing to charging and real-world driving range.

"This event is about honest conversations with local owners who have real experiences to share,” Christian Cochrane from Electrify Kiama said.

The Meet the Owner EV Day comes on the back of official confirmation from the Electric Vehicle Council that EV sales are booming: more than one in three cars sold in Australia in June were battery electric or plug-in hybrid EVs.

Ty Christopher, Energy Futures Network Director at the University of Wollongong, said: “Across Australia, the energy transition is going ahead at an ever increasing and rapid rate. It’s a truly rampant success story.”

This is largely thanks to three things. Firstly, solar, wind and hydro generating more than 50% of our electricity, secondly, the “runaway success” of batteries and thirdly, the electrification of transport.

“For that,” Ty said, “to my ongoing amazement, we have to thank the greatest champion for renewables who is active in the globe at the moment … the president of the United States. He is doing more for renewables and the uptake thereof, particularly here in Australia, and particularly in the transport industry than almost any other person.

“There's no denying the acceleration factor here, driven by concerns over sovereign fuel security. None of Australia's sun, none of Australia's wind – which we have in abundance – has to come through the Strait of Hormuz. It's already here for us to use, that's the real bottom line.”

From the start of the war in the Middle East, Australian households have felt the pain at the petrol pump and voted with their wallets.

CommBank lending data showed a 161% lift in demand for EV finance in March compared to February.

In April, Illawarra Flame columnist Peter Aubourg, the retired Coledale engineer behind ‘Diary of an EV Driver’, was among the first to give an ironic nod to President Donald Trump’s contribution, writing: “His war has caused a spike in fuel prices that has created a corresponding spike in the already expanding EV market.”

Last month, the peak body for the EV industry, the Electric Vehicle Council, announced sales of battery electric (BEV) or plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles hit 35.8% of total new passenger car sales in June 2026. CEO Julie Delvecchio said: “The Tesla Model Y was Australia’s best-selling vehicle of any fuel type, while BYD delivered 18,881 vehicles in a single month. It’s not hard to see why. Once people switch, they don’t go back — driving electric costs four times less than petrol, so EVs just stack up.”

Compared to the running costs of a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (fuelled by petrol or diesel), drivers can save up to 70% on equivalent fuel costs if they charge their EVs at home, according to the Australian Government’s guide to electric vehicles, ev.gov.au.

While the primary driver is savings, the rush to EVs is also good news for the environment, UOW’s Energy Futures Network Director said.

“That electrification of transport has resulted in a reduction in Australians' net emissions for transport for the first time in a very long time, which is fantastic,” Ty said.

“It's people voting with their wallets and their brains and not listening to the anti-renewables, anti-electric vehicle, fear-mongering propaganda that's put out by the Murdoch press in particular, basically looking after the fossil fuel interests that fund them and pay for advertising in there. So we're seeing people not believing that rubbish that's out there and, in the transport sector, buying electric vehicles.

“I mean, BYD’s latest dedicated carrier, that's got 5000 vehicles in one shipment arriving here in Australia. It's across multiple brands that electric vehicles are going gangbusters.

“Yes, there's still work to be done in some areas. Yes, EV charging infrastructure could always be better. Yes, heavy vehicle transportation decarbonisation still needs a lot of attention, but each week we turn around, more and more is occurring in that space.”