Established by trailblazers of the Australian environment movement in 1972, Total Environment Centre has worked with Australian communities on more than 100 victorious campaigns - defending parks and bushland in rural and urban areas, driving debate, advocating for pure air and water, supporting positive change in business and industry, and encouraging better environmental policy.
TEC has form in the business of comparing and ranking products that claim green credentials. We created Carbon Offset Watch in 2007, and the Green Electricity Guide (with Greenpeace) in 2014. From 2004 to 2022 we worked to reform the National Electricity Market to improve its environmental outcomes.
The decarbonisation of Australia's energy sector is now well underway, with the share of renewables in the grid increasing by around 25% over the past decade. On current projections, that is still not nearly fast enough to meet Australia's commitment under the Paris climate agreement. However, the momentum for change is now unstoppable.
The same cannot be said for the transportation sector. Starting with EVs, TEC is therefore now turning its attention to transport, which has hardly begun to decarbonise. As the old saying goes, long road, single step…
Our promise—and a disclaimer
TEC guarantees that this guide is, and always will be:
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Independent: We received no financial or other inducement or reward to create and maintain the guide, and have no known conflicts of interest in relation to this project.
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Comprehensive: the guide is the most thorough analysis available in the Australian context of the environmental impacts of private car purchase, use and disposal.
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Transparent: We are committed to full public disclosure of our methodology and results.
Nevertheless, TEC did not have the capacity to do original research for this iteration of the guide. We rely on publicly available data, wherever possible from independent sources, but will promptly rectify any mistakes users alert us to.
Many thanks to the experts who provided valuable feedback on drafts of this guide. Naturally, any mistakes and all opinions are the responsibility of Dr Mark Byrne, Energy and Transport Analyst, TEC, and TEC itself.
The information on this website was current up to 30 June 2023.
To provide feedback, please email electriccarguide@tec.org.au.
To read more, download the full report here (pdf - 2.4Mb).