Australia's love for V8 lives on: 'High demand' for powerful engines driven by lack of EV incentives

Jaguar Land Rover continues to see "strong demand" for its inline-six and V8 engines and predicts it will continue to do so until incentives to upgrade to a lower emission option improve.

While many brands in Australia are starting to introduce hybrid, plug-in hybrid or full BEV engine options into their lineups, Jaguar Land Rover has basically chosen to keep its PHEV options overseas.

The reason, according to JLR managing director Mark Cameron, is that while some state governments have noted incentives for electric vehicles, few of them extend to premium-priced cars, and until they do, interest in six-cylinder engines and V8 engines will not disappear. anywhere.

“I'm excited to see some of these changes at the state level in terms of incentives for electric vehicles,” he says. “We have a large selection of plug-in hybrids that are produced all over the world.

“We don't sell them in Australia at this time, so I'm keeping an eye on market changes, changing conditions to decide when is the best time to introduce these cars in Australia.

We would like the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold to be revised. We would like customers who buy more expensive vehicles to have some ingenuity to switch their buying behavior from buying traditional ICE engines to energy efficient vehicles.

“But until these customers have some kind of incentive, we will see a high level of demand for straight-sixes and V8 engines.”

New South Wales, for example, will eliminate stamp duty on electric vehicles under $78,000 from September this year, and will include plug-in hybrids from July 2027.

This price cap roughly matches the $79,659 LCT threshold, which is higher than many JLR models, which essentially means their buyers have no incentive to upgrade.

“We will have a large set of technologies. I hope that in the coming years we will be able to expand the range of plug-in hybrids and full electric vehicles,” says Mr. Cameron.