Australia has missed a major electric vehicle milestone thanks to an unexpected bug in the system.
Sales of low-emission vehicles had been tipped to top 100,000 for the first time in 2023.
But just as thousands of motorists were expecting a Christmas car delivery, the cargo ship holding them off the coast of Brisbane turned around and returned to China.
The reason? The discovery of yellow-spotted stink bugs.
The car-carrying ship Glovis Caravel arrived off Brisbane in late October and has capacity for 6,500 vehicles.
Many of those it was carrying were reportedly Tesla Model Ys, though Kia has also confirmed about 1,000 of its vehicles were aboard.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said authorities worked with the vessel’s operators to manage risks after the discovery of live insects.
“There were multiple detections, including yellow-spotted stink bug which poses significant threat to Australia’s plant health and environment because of the damage it can do to agricultural crops, fruit and ornamental trees,” according to a spokesperson.
“The vessel has left Australian territory on its own accord in order to manage the biosecurity risk associated with the goods.”
The ship has since returned to Shanghai, where the vehicles have been unloaded.
Customers expecting Tesla Model Ys in December reported receiving updates from the automaker explaining the delay and promising to investigate other options, including assigning them cars “from the next batch of production”.
The delay appears to have had significant impact on Tesla in Australia, with sales of its Model Y dropping from 3,157 in November to 1,351 in December, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
The Electric Vehicle Council chief executive, Behyad Jafari, said the delayed shipment impacted Australia’s entire market.
Motorists around the nation bought 87,217 electric cars in 2023, or more than double the figure from 2022, but fell just short of the council’s forecast.
“Deliveries of electric vehicles would have passed 100,000 if it wasn’t for this ship being turned around with stink bugs and that would be been nice for us to celebrate,” he said. “Nobody sets out to have these problems come up.”
The Australian Electric Vehicle Association national president, Chris Jones, said the issue was not entirely unexpected.
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“New Zealand had trouble with these pests all last year and it was only a matter of time before Australia did too,” he said.
“Ships have been turned around for quarantine reasons before but it’s a shame that it happened to be when there was a stack of EVs on board that people had been waiting for.”
Biosecurity experts have been warning about potential invasions by stink bugs, particularly the high-risk brown marmorated stink bug, for some time.
The CSIRO has worked with the agriculture department to develop and test an app using artificial intelligence to detect high-risk stink bug species in real time.
The organisation estimates invasive alien species in Australia cost about $25bn each year in agricultural losses and pest management.
The bug detected in the cargo ship is common to Asia and could pose a risk to fruit crops if imported into Australia, including pears, peaches, apples and kiwifruit.
University of South Australia associate professor Patrick O’Connor said the detection will ultimately benefit the entire community.
“For something like turning around a ship or delaying access to EVs, there’s a private cost,” he said. “But otherwise [the price] could be billions of dollars borne by many individuals over generations and have significant consequences that you can’t foresee.”
He said Australia may need to further advertise its significant biosecurity penalties to underline the message and ensure this does not happen regularly.
