At least that is the claim from Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash, who yesterday accused the Labor leader of wanting to take away people’s petrol-guzzling cars and force them to buy electric vehicles instead.

“We are going to stand by our tradies and we are going to save their utes,” Ms Cash told reporters.

“We understand choice and that is what Bill Shorten is taking away from our tradies.”

She joined a chorus of Coalition figures who have criticised the Opposition’s announcement of a target for electric car sales to make up 50 per cent of the market by 2030 as well as new emissions standards for petrol vehicles.

At the weekend, Prime Minister Scott Morrison ramped up his attack on Labor’s plan, saying it would strip people of four-wheel drives and spell “the end of the weekend”.

“The sort of vehicles that Bill Shorten wants you to drive, you can’t get one for less than $45,000 and it won’t tow that boat, it won’t tow that trailer,” Mr Morrison said.

But the hurdle for the Coalition Government is their previous support for the electric vehicle industry and its own strategy forecasts that the cars would by 2030 represent 25 to 50 per cent of sales.

And the Department of the Environment and Energy’s analysis on the future market share of electrics indicates it would be almost identical under Labor or the Liberals.

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAYS

The Prime Minister will call an election any day now, with Australians tipped to go to the polls some time in mid to late-May.

And he seems to be road-testing — pardon the pun — some potential attack lines.

But the man Mr Morrison replaced in the top job last year, Malcolm Turnbull, today described the Coalition’s electric vehicle campaign as “peak crazy”.

“I’m not in politics anymore; I don’t have to engage in peak crazy,” Mr Turnbull said. “The technology is ever-expanding.”

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has been a staunch critic of Labor’s policy and said Mr Shorten would take “a wrecking ball (to) the economy” by limiting petrol-powered transportation.

“It would raise the price of electricity and the price of gas and the price of food and the price of cars,” Mr Taylor said. “Labor needs to come clean on the detail — not just the mechanism, which we know is the carbon tax.”

He said the popular Toyota Hilux ute would “breach (Labor’s proposed) standards by a significant amount” and “take choice away from consumers”.

Today, Toyota released a statement denying the claim and said it would offer electric versions of its entire range in the next six years.

“Toyota has a global ambition of zero CO2 emissions from sites and vehicles by 2050 and Toyota Australia is part of that mission,” the company said.

And the motoring group NRMA also rejected the Government’s line about utes, with spokesman Peter Khoury saying the industry was moving on its own.

“There is already work being done on the first electric ute, there will be electric vans, there are already electric buses,” Mr Khoury said. “This is the way the technology is heading.”

READ MORE: All the big questions about electric cars

Mr Taylor was previously a supporter of the electric car sector and in October awarded $6 million for a series of rapid-charge stations. In that announcement, he spruiked the ability for stations to provide “a range of up to 400 kilometres in just 15 minutes”.

But at the weekend, Mr Taylor accused Labor of lying about the reliability of electric cars.

“Bill Shorten says electric vehicles can charge in 10 minutes, but they take hours,” he said.

Liberal MP Jason Falinski claimed the electric car target would be “Pink Batts all over again”, referring to the Rudd Government’s failed insulation scheme, the rushed rollout of which was blamed for the deaths of four workers.

But it was Dave Sharma, the Liberal candidate in Wentworth, who lost the by-election against independent MP Kerryn Phelps last year, who took his criticism the furthest.

“I don’t want to see it become like the Soviet Union where we all have to buy a Trabant,” Mr Sharma said on Tuesday.

That’s a reference to the Soviet-made car in the former East Germany until its collapse, and popularly described as “a spark plug on wheels”.

“I support seeing more electric cars on the road (but) I would not be going around setting targets. Electric cars might be made obsolete by autonomous vehicles,” he said.

The Liberal Party rolled out targeted social media advertisements on Monday claiming that Labor “wants to tax your ute”.

“Labor’s car tax would mean higher prices on some of Australia’s most popular cars,” the Facebook ad reads.

WHAT LABOR SAYS

Transport accounts for almost 20 per cent of Australia’s total emissions, but Australia is one of the few countries in the developed world not to have vehicle emissions standards.

Mr Shorten said this led to “skyrocketing” pollution on the roads and saw motorists pay hundreds of dollars more for fuel than they should.

Labor says it will phase in standards that are in line with those in place in the United States and less robust than Europe.

“Vehicle retailers would have average emissions targets — not a blanket requirement,” Mr Shorten said.

“This will allow retailers to meet the standards by offsetting high emissions car sales with low or zero emissions car sales — such as electric vehicles.”

Labor would also make half of the Government’s own vehicle fleet electric by 2025 and encourage business to go electric by offering tax deductions.

Mr Shorten has accused the government of engaging in a scare campaign.

“No one’s going to make you give up your ute — no one’s going to confiscate it,” he told reporters yesterday.

“But the idea that we shouldn’t be looking for more fuel-efficient vehicles is silly. The Government themselves have said that electric vehicles for example will lead to a reduction in the costs of running a motor car, and the same will be the case with fuel standards and fuel emission standards, so we’ll get it right.”

Labor’s plan has been welcomed by environmentalists and conservationists but questioned by the Australian Business Council, which said it wants more detail on how the targets would be realistically achieved.

And academic Anna Mortimore of Griffith University said the policy was ambitious but “short on details”.

“The key targets are to have electric vehicles make up 50 per cent of new car sales by 2030 and to introduce regulatory fuel emissions standards,” Ms Mortimore said.

“As Australia currently lacks federal policies to reduce or reverse petrol emissions, these goals are laudable. But it’s unclear how Labor will actually achieve them, especially if they remain reluctant to impose costs and tariffs on high-emitting cars — one of the most successful international strategies.”

Yesterday, Labor senator Kristina Keneally held a press conference and paraded a series of photographs of Coalition politicians, including Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, spruiking electric vehicles.

WHAT PROPONENTS SAY

Electric Vehicle Council chief executive officer Behyad Jafari said Australia was lagging behind the rest of the developed world.

Electrics account for less than 1 per cent of new car sales in Australia annually but a big reason for that was a lack of investment in infrastructure, Mr Jafari said.

“You’ve got the Prime Minister bashing the technology rather than supporting it,” he told Sky News. “We’ve seen him right over the last week … starting to lay into (electric vehicles).

“Putting the target in, in the first place, allows everything else to fall in line behind it, to say ‘let’s initially provide some support to get the market started and once that’s started we can withdraw support and let the private market take over’.”

Other countries going “hammer and tongs” towards electric vehicles and incentives had seen sales lift substantially, he said.

Australia faced a “chicken and egg problem” — consumers are waiting for infrastructure and those who would invest in it are waiting for the market to build.