Australians importing untested EVs through enthusiast vehicle loophole, ANCAP boss says

The Australian car safety testing agency says people are using a specialist and enthusiast car scheme to get untested and potentially dangerous second-hand electric vehicles into the country. The federal Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water is conducting hearings about the transition to electric vehicles and met in Melbourne on Thursday. Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) chief executive Carla Hoorweg said the specialist and enthusiast scheme was being misused. “We don’t believe that is the intention of that mechanism, to be used to wholesale import used electric vehicles and we have concerns about the safety of those vehicles,” he said. The specialist and enthusiast scheme allows an individual vehicle or small batches of five to six vehicles to be brought into the country. The vehicles aren’t tested by ANCAP because the testers need four of the same production model to produce a star rating. “There’s additional tests, but we need to destroy four vehicles at the end of the test program to conduct all those tests,” Ms Hoorweg said. Examinations include slamming cars head-on and crashing into a pole side-on. “When you’re importing individual one-off vehicles, there’s no way for us to provide that safety information,” she said. “Our concern is it’s essentially subverting ANCAP’s rating system. It’s subverting the Australian design rule requirements,” she said. Second-hand EV models were being imported using the enthusiast scheme, Ms Hoorweg said. “Older, unsafe vehicles are being brought into the market without any real control,” she said. The scheme was designed to bring in American hot rods and other specialist, unique and historical vehicles. “What we’re concerned about is people accessing second-hand EVs, which is not really a specialist or enthusiast (vehicle) anymore. When it was first brought in, that was the case, but now we’ve moved into the mainstream, so it’s time for that scheme to be reviewed.” The Department of Infrastructure and Transport is responsible for the specialist and enthusiast scheme. To Ms Hoorweg’s knowledge, the number of EVs imported under the scheme was not public, but the department would have the number. More to come