Nanda, who lives about 60km from Melbourne's CBD, says he's saved up to $6,000 a year thanks to switching to an electric car. He's part of a growing trend that has seen EV sales in outer suburbs boom as cost-of-living pressures bite.
But…that's exactly where I thought it would be? Like, where else would it be? Inner suburbs less likely to drive in general, and rural is more likely to need (or at least perceive the need for) greater range.
Yeah I don't understand the premise of the headline either - unless it's supposed to be some slight on 'inner-city lefties', being the only ones who could possibly want an EV...
The ABC now likes to do clickbait style headlines like that to try and grab attention, it's a trend that annoys me. They also often rotate through options including a more traditional headline depending on what device you use and what time you access it - currently the headline is showing for me as "Electric car sales in Australia's outer suburbs take off as commuters pocket 'ridiculous' savings", which while still a bit hyped up is more informative.
They also often rotate through options including a more traditional headline depending on what device you use and what time you access it
Often what they do is have the actual article headline be something properly journalistic, but they set a meta tag on the article called the "og:title" (og stands for "open graph", which is a standard for describing the contents of your article to social media sites)—which is what usually gets set as the title if you use the "copy suggested title" button, or what is displayed as the title under a link on Facebook—to something more clickbaity.
Personally, I don't like it, especially from the ABC who have no revenue incentive, but strictly logically it makes sense. Keep your on-site journalism having integrity, while displaying to social media what is going to get the most clicks.