electrification of Australia\u2019s car industry<\/a> is in full swing, accelerated by high petrol prices caused by the Iran conflict.<\/p>\nEagers Automotive, operator of the largest network of car dealerships in Australia, noted in its financial results that once a driver steps away from a full combustion engine, they rarely go back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing we have observed is that the transition from a fully combustion engine car to a full electric vehicle \u2013 and that transition might include a hybrid vehicle, a plug-in hybrid vehicle, and ultimately a full battery electric vehicle \u2013 is a one-way street,\u201d the chief executive of Eagers Automotive, Keith Thornton, told analysts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Almost one in three new vehicles sold in Australia during July was electric, with combined battery-electric and plug-in hybrid sales reaching a record 32% of new car sales, according to the Electric Vehicle Council.<\/p>\n
EV sales are now running about triple the volume from a year ago.<\/p>\n
5. Snail mail<\/p>\n
The government-owned Australia Post reported a pre-tax loss of $108m for last financial year, as rising delivery costs and the existential decline of letter sending weighs on its finances.<\/p>\n
Letter volumes are now at 1930s levels, when Australia\u2019s population was about one-quarter the current size. Today, most letters are sent by businesses and government agencies.<\/p>\n
The problem for the postal service is that the cost of maintaining a national delivery system is getting more expensive at the same time as letters are phasing out, with volumes falling a further 15% during the last year alone.<\/p>\n
To partially offset costs, Australia Post is increasing the price of a basic stamp by 15c to $1.85 on 1 September.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stamp price increases have been extreme \u2013 it cost 70c just over a decade ago to send a regular letter \u2013 raising questions over how much longer snail mail will exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Anko everywhere Kmart\u2019s home brand, Anko, started out with a strategy of mimicking popular items, like Birkenstocks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-873276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}