Australians are driving bigger, heavier, dirtier cars and it’s alarming both climate and road safety experts.
A decade ago, sedans and hatchbacks were the most popular cars in Australia. Today, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and American-style utes dominate new car sales and advertising.
A failure to properly regulate the import of yank tanks. Stop letter them in, simple.
How about we allow them in, but make them work in our interests through high taxes and other ownership requirements that more than offset the damage they do.
Sound good. Maybe something like make them have an extra child to make up for the one the will inevitably run down? Lol
Yeah, if it was simply environmental, then maybe there could be some sort of offset scheme introduced. However unlikely it would be to actually make it to 1:1.
But adding the extra, and unnecessary, road danger, yeah… old mates weekend can go stick it.
Can you please write all public policy for the country?
Also disallow tax writeoffs on 'em
The problem is the tax writeoffs are for businesses. You can’t close that loophole unless the govt gets into the weeds of defining exactly what a “work truck” is. Those people who claim tax writeoffs on these yank tanks actually do use them for work or appear to.
Even if the use is just driving to work.
A cautionary tale of what we don’t want to become (and are on our way to becoming): These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us
F = ma, or net force is equal to mass times acceleration. That’s the physics driving adoption of land barges. Have to have lots of mass to avoid being subjected to deadly amounts of acceleration when the distracted, texting, makeup applying, breakfast juggling driver plows into you in their lifted F350.
Crashes are actually a shitload more complicated than that. Impulse is a big deal and then you have to factor in the meat geometry of a human and the specialness of various bits of meat.
Don’t throw scientifish nonsense around. Just say big car scary make get big car.
Are we all just going the ignore the fact that the FCIA director’s name is Peter Griffin?
Make a suitable alternative for the soccer mums. Most suvs never go outside the city these days
It’s a symptom of the ride height war. When everyones giant arse car is blocking your view of oncoming traffic you either follow suit or literally risk death every time you pull out of your kids daycare.
Obvious solution: periscopes!
Wouldn’t be against it. Like a roof mounted camera.
Drones that fly a fixed distance above/behind. Maybe tethered, so they don’t have to constantly recharge. As a bonus, I’m sure I’d be a better driver with a video game camera angle.
We bought an electric recently. Was very upset to have to choose the Kona in order to fit 2 tall people and 2 big dogs. It’s a great car but being realistic there’s no need for it to be so big.
It seems like the styles now being sold are small hatchback, sedan, and everything else is SUV. Very disappointing to see there’s not much middle ground lile the station wagon space or slightly larger hatchbacks. Especially with EVs. Most of my trips are like 40 km at most. I don’t need 500 km range with a full car…
Station wagons are excellent, my 2003 holden has more cubic space than these ‘I need it for the space’ SUVs
What a ridiculous argument. Hope their insecurities resolve after they back over their toddlers.
Yeah absolutely. This silly car doesn’t even have enough room for a suitcase and the dogs in the back but it’s a good head an shoulders above my dad’s holden station wagon.
Part of that is the battery sure (maybe the head part) a lot is also ground clearance. I need a bit of ground clearance sure but we used to manage with firm suspension just fine. If it’s shaking the crap out of you just drive slower. No need to tear down lumpy roads at 80 km/h unless you’re actually a farmer.
We are also talking 2 big greyhounds and 2 six foot people, one with back problems that prevent a more reclined seating position, living in the blue mountains. We’re not your average family. This stuff is marketed to average urbanites who defs need to be able to fit an entire Holiday’s worth of luggage and their whole family on those red pavement roads they take to the school in the morning?
Surely there’s room for more practical stuff ffs.
Definitely need bigger boot space I find the front is quite a lot of waste space but decided it’s better than hauling my aged hatchback WRX around with petrol price these days. I learn to live with it but roof rack is a must.
Ours has the rack. Unsure on effect on range but I just did sydney to Canberra easily with one stop I needed to take for concentration anyway.
I’ve never had a roof rack before, where to look for a sturdy one that’s aerodynamic for the car? It’d be good for a holiday
Our is factory fitted and it shouldn’t matter much in aerodynamic and range wise. Battery consumption would be more related to acceleraion and driving habit. in the city I get 11.7 - 12.5 kWh/100km so yes should be doable for Syd Can trip on an extended range. If you have luggage I would recommend an after market roof tray to make it easier loading unloading. Just finished its first 1000km so no idea how things will be.
What’s actually going to ruin adoption are the new electric vehicle taxes being introduced
EVs are much heavier than ICE cars of the same size and wear roads faster so more funding will be needed to maintain everything. Walkability/cycling and PT are the way forward
While it’s true that EVs are generally heavier than equivalent ICE vehicles, it doesn’t actually make much difference. Heavy trucks account for the vast majority of road wear and tear. Even a comparatively heavy EV doesn’t weigh anywhere near as much as a truck.
The “EVs will wear the roads out!” argument is generally trotted out by people who have been influenced by those who have a vested interest in keeping ICE around.
It’s true that active transport and PT are better in most respects, its naive to think we’ll be getting rid of cars any time soon. When people do need to drive, an EV is always a better choice from an environmental standpoint.
PT? Micro mobility/PEVs?
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Just a reminder to keep discussions civil and respectful - This includes dog-piling, everyone is entitled to their opinion and if you notice the conversation degenerate it is fine just to agree to disagree.
I was at a shopping center and the car park was almost full. Then i saw this dumb removed in her big ford Raptor , trying to get into the parking lot which is already busy. Looking at her driving skill and face , I knew she’ll do something dumb so I took out my phone and started recording. 5 minutes in she side swiped another car. The guy who was driving a VW golf got out and yelled at her in some asian language. I recorded the full thing, its really fun to watch
it’s really fun to watch
Did you bring enough for the class?
Would they not be driving gas-powered SUVs if not for the availability of electric ones? Are electric SUVs not more efficient than a gas-powered vehicle of the same mass? If so, then that’s still a win, just less of one than was hoped for.
Not necessarily. I bought an electric SUV (BYD Atto 3,) but would definitely have preferred something smaller. I definitely appreciate some aspects of its size, but if an affordable hatchback had been available, I’d almost certainly have gone with that. I could have waited, but there was no way to know at the time how long it would be until something like that was available. The most likely contender was the BYD Dolphin, but at that stage there was no confirmation that it would definitely be coming here.
While I’m sure many people buy the SUVs because they genuinely want something that size, I suspect a lot of people are like me and are buying what’s available.
EVs are more efficient than an ICE vehicle of the same size, let alone the same mass. But yeah, still a win even if not as big a win as desired. EVs at their worst are still better for the environment than ICE.
A few years ago when the Pulsar was getting a little small for the kids and all their kit, I was looking for a wagon. Something like a Falcon wagon.
For a vehicle class that I thought of as ubiquitous, the options for a simple wagon were surprisingly few. Further, the SUVs were surprisingly economic to run. We’re talking a few years back, I forget the exact figures, but the Outlander that I ended up buying was in the same ballpark as a Falcon wagon.
So, I am a part of this statistic, but a bit of the blame needs to fall on manufacturers who pivoted away from medium cars and to SUVs. Electric cars were not on the cards at all. Well out of my budget, and the range of models out today didn’t exist, yet.
Yeah, well, sedans and hatchbacks don’t tow my caravan into the Victorian High Country.
I’ll gladly switch to an EV offroader once I know it’s capable of getting my family and I to where we’re going, and home again.
This, or something similar, is what many people think. I wonder how many days in a year these vehicles are actually seeing that intended use, though. So many people seem to buy these large, inefficient vehicles with the intent of using them off-road and/or on family holidays, but what they actually end up using them for 99.9% of the time is just daily suburban commutes. It makes zero sense.
I literally see everyday these idiots with their giant “trucks” pulling their caravans up the east coast. The funny part is they can’t even seem to tow them with any degree of confidence or at a suitable speed most of the time. I then see someone in a more humble vehicle that is towing a similar caravan with speed and confidence. It is more a mental issue of size,size,size makes me better.
Saw an ad on Facebook for a ranger the other day, 2 years old 21k km, description read never been off-road, mainly used to go from home to the office. Was selling to upgrade to the new model.
Also I don’t believe these fancier utes are very suitable for actual work, to much precious body work and paint around the bed of the truck. We have some single cab utes at work, and what gets put on the tray I wouldn’t want to be doing on anything I cared about the looks of. Also the height to get to some of the trays is ridiculous.
The bed of mine was factory sprayed with a thick rubber/plastic layer - it’s very hard wearing. Pretty sure I could hit it with the blade of my extra heavy 11kg crowbar and barely leave a scratch and you can buy aerosol cans of the stuff at SuperCheap for 40 bucks. It’s easy to repair.
Single cab isn’t an option, I have kids in the back seats all the time. Also the family complains when our camp bedding gets covered in mud/dust/etc.
The bed of my tray is 900mm off the ground and I prefer that height to anything lower. For example it’s a lot more comfortable to unload load bags of cement or shovel sand/gravel out of the tray when it’s already at waist height. I do need some sort of step (esky/etc) to stand on while roll my motorcycle up with a ramp… but that’s no big deal.
As for being environmentally friendly, that’s what my eBike is for. Pretty much only drive the dual cab when I need to.
All fair points. I don’t follow the whole no one should own one as put forward by a lot of people here. There is just a lot of people don’t need one. Know someone who drives a patrol from one side of Melbourne to the other side everyday as a commute to the office, one person no kids with no equipment , and they have another 4WD so there is no excuse there. My environmentalist mate has a land cruiser as that’s how he can explore our beautiful country, and rides a bike to work.
I can’t speak for others, but I definitely do use mine for off-roading as much as I can.
Is it as much as I’d like? No - I have to earn the money to afford the hobby. But it’s absolutely worth it, especially when I get to show my daughter some of the awesome things we have to offer.
The reality is that we’re a rough, tough country, and getting to see lots of it requires special vehicles.
The reason this seems so recent is because, previously, 4WD vehicles were either purpose-built, or expensive if they were tricked out to be daily drivers. That made them uncomfortable or expensive.
With the death of our local car market, it’s opened up a much wider, cheaper, more refined set of offerings, so more people can afford to get into the hobby.
How often is “as much as you can”, honestly? We don’t care that it’s your hobby. Pick a different hobby or move to a rural area. Big cars kill people at far higher rates.
Please, watch this video, it summarises nicely the argument against bigger and bigger vehicles and likely addresses most of the excuses you’ll come up with:
It’s about the US, but a lot of it is applicable to Australia also.
They don’t need to pick a different hobby, they can just hire an off-road vehicle instead. There is no reason for people to be buying vehicles for extremely niche, rare use cases when they can just hire an equivalent for a few weeks.
Money saved on the cost of the vehicle, gas and taxes should more than offset the cost of rental once or twice a year. If it doesn’t, tax more.
I suppose the problem is going off road you’re likely to scratch the paint or bend something that shouldn’t be bent which might be costly
I’m sure if they’re renting offroaders they’re aware of that. I did that in Iceland and everything was covered and the vehicle was bent and scratched already when I got it.
And what an awful hobby it is
Please keep discussions civil and respectful
Why do you say that? What’s so awful about seeing parts of our beautiful country that are hard to get to?
The fuck is in your caravan, there are electric fords that can literally tow a freight train.
Go buy an outback wagon. Not to crossover shit from the last 14-15 years.
It’s an off-road caravan, which I take off-road. Ergo, I need an off-road tow vehicle.
You’re not going too off road with a bloody caravan though.
Oh yes indeed I am (have)! I’ve even taken my van into Wonnangatta.
…the big flat ex-station plateau that’s like driving on a suburban backyard?
Yeah, righto. Look it up on Wikipedia, did we? If you can, read the words instead of just looking at the pictures - you’ll see it’s only accessible with 4WD, dirt bikes, on horse, or on foot.
that’s because the bloody place was never paved to, and shut down a century ago. (Try me, most of my family are from the high lands and I grew up there)
True, a sedan won’t cut it, maybe a ute would if you’ve done a bit of thrashing, but the point I’m getting at is it’s not exactly hardcore 4WD driving, and an electric 4x4 can take it without even blinking.
Buy a tent and a camping stove ?
They do if you buy a proper sedan/hatchback
What an ignorant thing to say
How is that ignorant. Thinking a sedan can’t pull a caravan is just stupid.
They can pull a caravan on the highway. As soon as you try to drive over something even slightly uneven your wheels will slip and you’ll be stuck.
I said my use case was off-roading in the Vic High Country. So your reply to that was ignorant. Simple.
I tow a fully off road van in an old style (ie not American mega truck) Nissan. I have great visibility. Plenty of power and clearance.
I drove a rental Ford Everest sport or something like that today. The blind spots are insane. The height and width are unnecessary. It’s dangerous. It’s shit. It should require a special license (with warnings all over it)
We don’t need American style, embarrassing, emotional support machines to tow our vans.
All we need is appropriate clearance and suspension and enough torque.
My ‘little’ Nissan has those things in buckets. I’ve done plenty of tracks. The old telegraph track. The Cape. On and on.
I can’t wait for this embarrassing, large body panel fashion to pass.
As mine ages, I’ll buy another tow vehicle once this time has passed, and we’re back at sensible sized capable tow vehicles.
It’s called a tent. You can even carry some of them on your back.
Each to their own. We enjoy caravanning. Did our time in tents - too much fuckery setting up and packing up.
Pardon my curiosity…
From Melbourne?
Are you able to get away just for a weekend, or a longer stay? How often?
Also, what’s your favourite spot in the Vic high country?
Ta
Yep, from Melbourne. I generally get away once a month, sometimes twice. If there’s a long weekend in there, then definitely as long as that, and will often tack an extra day or two onto it. I also do a two week trip each year with the family, as well as a one week 4WD trip with mates (move each day).
So many favourite spots:
- Mt Lovick, camp right near the hut
- Just about any of the campsites north of Dargo are really nice places, especially in summer (just sit in the river)
- Pineapple Flat is a definite top three (north of Mt Buller)
- Wonnangatta Station - always fun getting in or out via one of the spurs
Of course, where we go depends on what we want to do. If we feel like tackling Billy Goat’s Bluff (for example), we’ll usually use Eaglevale as base camp, and head out on day trips to check out the sights.
