But in 2020, horses are of course the rarity instead of cars in suburbia.

In the same way that the invention of petrol engines folded into the everyday fabric of people's lives, Holbrook's Bruce Quick can see electric cars also becoming commonplace.

"[Back then] someone came into town with this thing that made noise and smoke came out the back - they were suspicious of it," he says.

"They might have said, 'My transport eats the grass and it costs me nothing, you're an idiot paying to put that benzene in your car'.

"Electric cars are coming. It's inevitable.

"Scott Morrison will eat his words - "It will ruin the weekends", "What will the tradies do", etcetera - but I am an average person."

So how does the person next door - in a country town where there are more farmers' utes than anything else - come to own a Model X Tesla?

"I have been thinking about Tesla for years and years," Bruce says.

"[I watched how] Tesla built a platform for their batteries, put in four wheels and got that to work. They built some seats and put a chassis on it. It's not a petrol car that has been modified to have batteries and an electric motor.

"They were very expensive - a quarter of a million dollars - and that was out of my price range.

"They had a demonstrator Model X that was at the right end of the budget .

"That's the problem, when you take a Tesla for a test drive, all of a sudden it's the best car you have ever driven.

"I was on the waiting list for a couple years."

That test drive was eight months ago, and Bruce has received all sorts of reactions since then.

"'The first questions I get are, 'How far does it go and how long does it take to charge?'. I feel like having a sign on my car," he jokes, "Over 400km and it depends".

"There are now super chargers in town that will put Holbrook on the map.

"You could jump in your car and go from Holbrook to Melbourne without stopping - but it's not a good idea. I can't make it to Melbourne without stopping.

"I'll stop at Euroa, I plug it in and walk away. You stop, then you go inside and pay, move the car, get a coffee and go to the loo. You might be in and out in 15 minutes, I'll be there for 30 minutes."

But the extra time is more than worth it when you have autonomous driving at your fingertips, Bruce says.

"On the freeway, I like to be three car lengths apart," he explains.

"[The car] is telling me, there's three other cars around me, and it won't let me change lanes if there's a car in my blind spot. Maybe it will spot the kangaroo early.

"It's quiet, it's relaxing."

For Klaus Wolki, the attraction of the Tesla is also the technology.

"ABS brakes, electric windows ... I've always paid a little extra for those things," the retired business owner says.

"It was my first electric car and I didn't know much about electric cars till a few months earlier ... I had a diesel Audi for eight years."

Klaus' purchase at the beginning of 2017 made him the Border's first Tesla owner, but also one of Australia's first.

"It was the first Model X (SUV) from the first delivery into Australia," he says.

"The Model 3 [that just came out] is $65,000 which isn't too bad. The one I bought years ago has dropped by $30,000 to $40,000.

"People used to ask me 'Why don't I wait until it's cheaper?' At my age, you don't wait."

"I have done 35,000 kilometres in two-and-a-half years.

"If I need a charger, I press the button in the car and it tells me where the closest one is."

Variation of chargers and distance between them is the biggest barrier currently to a growth in electric car ownership.

"It might help to put more chargers in. I was staying at a caravan park and I just plugged it in overnight in a normal power plug and it was slower," Klaus says.

"I don't charge it much at home. I will get 50 kilometres [charge] in an hour.

"The fast charger can be 400 kilometres to 600 kilometres in an hour, it depends how much is available in the grid.

"I think Albury was offered the fast chargers but Wodonga grabbed it, they wanted it.

"People go for a bite and a cup of coffee [while the car is charging]. It all helps Wodonga."

Like Klaus, Albury's Jules Boag comes to use the Tesla supercharger near The Cube at Wodonga, which was installed in October, 2015.

"You get a lot of cars coming to charge here," he says.

"I have actually modified my behaviour to charge here; I live in Albury but shop over here, you come back in 45 minutes after grocery shopping with a full car and it's pretty handy.

"Tesla is the only one who has a developed supercharger strategy; you can drive from the Gold Coast to Adelaide stopping every 20 minutes if you like."

Jules has been interested in Tesla since a battery electric vehicle called a Roadster was released in 2008.

The American company has grown to become the market leader, but others such as Hyundai are coming out with increasingly affordable options.

"The idea of a more sustainable form of transport really interests me," Jules says.

"Australia imports most of its fuel ... we can generate a lot [of electricity] through solar and wind."

Crucially, no petrol (or 'dinosaur juice', as Bruce calls it) means no emissions are produced by electric cars.

"When you buy a Tesla you don't have a gear box or an engine," Jules says.

"It also takes out that need for a dealer and servicing - no oil to change, no spark plugs, or all that kind of stuff - you have in an internal combustion motor.

"It is a concern that the closest service centre is in Melbourne, but I think that will change.

"Electric cars will dominate and it will happen sooner than you think; the large manufacturers have a lot of money invested in their infrastructure."

For some like Jules, the sustainability of the electric cars is the biggest appeal. But the luxury and power of the Tesla, that many might underestimate, is an added bonus for owners like Klaus.

"At a traffic light, I don't try to get across faster, and I am always at the other side before others start moving - they might think I am trying, but I'm not," he says.

"'It's a total different way of driving, the longer you have it I think the better you like it.

"On the other hand, it's only another car, isn't it?"