Mr Morrison and his colleagues hammered Bill Shorten over electric vehicles at the 2019 federal election, claiming that the former opposition leader's ambition to have EVs make up half of new car sales by 2030 would "end the weekend".

The Prime Minister has walked back that rhetoric over the past two years, and was on Tuesday talking up the transition as he released the government's long-awaited electric vehicle strategy.

Industry and green groups have been quick to criticise the government's plan, which ignores calls for subsidies to reduce the upfront cost of electric cars, new fuel efficiency standards or an end date for the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles.

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The government will instead boost funding for charging infrastructure as part of a $178 million expansion of its Future Fuels Fund.

It estimates that charging stations at more than 400 businesses, 50,000 households and more than 1000 public access points will be installed as a result of its approach.

The Coalition believes the shift to electric vehicles is already happening without incentives, pointing to figures which show sales in the first six months of this year are already 26 per cent higher than for all of 2020.

Despite the jump, electric vehicles still made up fewer than 2 per cent of new cars sold in that period.

The government projects that electric cars would make up 30 per cent of new car sales by 2030.

The announcement comes after Australia signed a global pledge to make electric vehicles the "new normal" by 2030 during the Glasgow climate talks.

Mr Morrison was challenged on his past anti-EV rhetoric when he visited Toyota's Hydrogen Centre in Melbourne on Tuesday morning to unveil the plan.

He was unrepentant, claiming that he didn't campaign against electric cars at the 2019 election - only Mr Shorten's policies.

"I was against Bill Shorten's mandate policy, trying to tell people what to do with their lives, what cars they were supposed to drive and where they could drive," Mr Morrison said.

"I don't agree with that. I still don't agree with it, and our policy takes a very different approach. Labor loves interfering in your life, they love telling you what to do. They don't like our plan because it doesn't tax you and doesn't force you to do anything."

Mr Morrison was questioned over his mocking of Mr Shorten's proposal to create a network of charging stations - now is a key feature of the Coalition's strategy.

He was again remorseless, saying technology had advanced significantly over the past few years.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese on Tuesday accused the government of being "scared of change" as Australia lag behinds the rest of the world in the uptake of electric vehicles.

Mr Albanese has ruled taking an electric vehicle sales target to the next election, but has already committed to making vehicles cheaper through through exemptions on import tariffs and fringe benefits taxes.

The national body representing Australia's electric vehicle industry criticised the absence of tax incentives or fuel efficiency standards in the plan.

"There's an element of a good plan there. Unfortunately, that's only about 5 per cent of what's needed," Electric Vehicles Council chief executive Behyad Jafari told ABC radio on Tuesday.

"We've been waiting two years for this policy. Every other country put their policies out over a decade ago now, so it's just far too little too late."

Australian Conservation Foundation climate campaigner Petra Stock said Australia and Russia were the only remaining countries in the OECD without vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards.

"Australian communities are missing out on the cleaner air and quieter streets that come from taking polluting cars off the road and replacing them with electric vehicles and public transport," she said.

With AAP

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