Labor politician fails five times to answer question on when electric cars will ...

Labor climate spokesman Chris Bowen has repeatedly failed to give a straight answer to when Australians will be able to buy an affordable electric car. 

Mr Bowen was asked five times by 7.30 report host Leigh Sales on Monday night, and gave an evasive answer full of Labor talking points each time.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has spent the past week pushing electric cars as a key plank of his party's climate agenda, promising tax cuts and incentives that Mr Bowen was on TV to promote.

But Sales knew most of that was of little interest to average Australian voters who just want to know when a decent one would be within their budgets.

She started gently, asking: 'On electrifying things, let's take one of the best selling cars, the Hyundai i30, it costs about $25,000 if you buy a new one.

'What’s your best prediction under a Labor government as to when would I be able to buy that equivalent-sized car for $25,000, but electric?'

Mr Bowen replied: 'Well, our policy is the electric vehicle tax cut, the main lever that we’re pushing.'

Then he got a bit more specific: 'We have a couple of electric vehicle policies including electrifying the Commonwealth fleet which is important because that will then flow through to the second-hand sales about three years later, which is very important. 

'So we would have 75 per cent of our new Commonwealth vehicles, not just Comcars but the entire fleets, as electric by 2025...'

Ms Sales interrupted in an attempt to get Mr Bowen to give a straight answer: 'Sorry to cut you off. Just for a consumer…'

But then Mr Bowen interrupted her: 'No, fair call. We would cut the taxes on electric vehicles below the luxury car tax threshold, so the more affordable ones. 

'We'd cut the tariff, abolish the tariff where a tariff is payable on an electric vehicle and for businesses we would abolish the fringe benefits tax. Now why is that important…'