René Konrad's Model S Tesla turns a lot of heads, and it's not because he can drive from Melbourne to Brisbane without spending a dime to fill up.
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He charges the car with electricity produced by the solar panels on his roof and can get up to 460 kilometres "per tank", before he needs to pull in to fill up at a charging station.
In a decade, Mr Konrad's electric car could be the norm, not the exception.
Modelling by Beyond Zero Emissions has shown transitioning Australia's fleet of petrol cars to electric could be cost neutral over 20 years.
Michael Lord, acting chief executive of Beyond Zero Emissions, said while the price of the battery made electric cars prohibitive to many people right now, that cost was rapidly falling.
"The price of the battery has come down 65 per cent since 2010 so we're beginning to see them start to compete with the cost of petrol cars,especially because of the lower cost of running," Mr Lord said.
Sustainability minister Shane Rattenbury said once the ACT hits its target of 100 per cent renewables by 2020, transport will jump from 25 per cent to 60 per cent of the ACT's emissions.
"Transport is going to become a really important area for us to make progress in cutting our emissions and going electric with our transport is really an important part of the answer," Mr Rattenbury said.
While Mr Konrad's Tesla cost him around $147,000, a new Nissan Leaf can cost as little as $40,000 in Australia, Mr Lord said.
He said replacing business and government fleets with electric cars like the Leaf could introduce electric cars to more people.
"Fleet cars represent about 45 per cent of all the cars in Australia so if they were introduced into fleets that would get them exposed to a large portion of the population," Mr Lord said.
The ACT government owns 16 electric cars but planning is an important part of the equation too, Mr Rattenbury said
"There's a real debate around what recharging options should look like," he said.
'Most people [charge their cars] at home so the public ones are really about having those emergency options so there is a debate among planners about how many recharging spots we need or whether it's in fact about making sure we get the options into new buildings so the people can charge them in the basement areas of apartment blocks, in the basement areas of office blocks.
"I'd expect the buildings of the future will have these options being built straight into the basement and you'll see people down there with the cables all of the time."
