BMW i3 electric car on sale in Australia

The first BMW electric car has gone on sale in Australia today -- but the German car maker wants Australian taxpayers to cover $10,000 of its $64,000 price, and even get tolls waived on some roads.

The BMW i3 will be only the third electric car to be sold in Australia when it arrives in showrooms by the end of the year.  Despite the global push towards electric vehicles, figures show Australians have been slow to embrace petrol-free driving because of the high price of the technology and concerns about being left stranded between power points.

Indeed, the first electric car that went on sale in Australia, the Mitsubishi iMiev, has already been withdrawn from showrooms after slow sales. And the second electric car to arrive, the Nissan Leaf, is currently being discounted by almost $20,000 -- to $39,990 drive-away -- in an attempt to give it a jump start.

Of the 266,370 vehicles sold in Australia so far this year, just 42 were electric cars, or 0.015 per cent of the market, according to figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. Nevertheless, BMW believes the i3 will reverse the trend and wants taxpayers to help.

BMW Australia boss Phil Horton said the company is speaking with state and federal government to make the i3 cheaper.  "Part of the issue that we have in Australia is there are so many layers of government," said Mr Horton. "But we've had initial meetings with Federal Government and those have been quite promising.

Mr Horton said BMW Australia was "not asking for a specific subsidy". However, he said: "Our aspiration in the fullness of time is that we would get something like they have in the UK or some other markets where you get either a straightforward $10,000 subsidy because you're buying an electric car, or ... a waiver on some part of the on-road charges." Mr Horton said he was also trying to negotiate "a waiver of tolls on electric cars".

"There are whole range of things that (governments) could do, whether or not they will do them is a different thing," said Mr Horton. BMW believes its electric will succeed even though others have failed because it will be available with pure electric power or with a "range extender", a tiny two-cylinder petrol engine that almost doubles the maximum driving range from 160km to 300km.

"So why is it going to be different for us? Without taking the arrogant overtones of it, we're a premium brand, it's a premium price for the car, but we think it's a premium car," said Mr Horton.

"I think (Australia) is more ready than it probably has been before. It would certainly help if we had more, and you hear this from all the manufacturers, assistance from government."

This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling