Opinion: Australia’s sales of big cars are out of control |
South Australia is not the only state to have a big car problem, there are now more utes across the nation than tradies and farmers. Jack Thrower argues it’s time to put the brake on sales.
A recent Federal Government report shows Australia’s transport emissions continue to rise.
As as reported by the Australian Financial Review, this rise is “driven in part by the immense popularity of large diesel-powered utes and SUVs, which contributed to a 7.8 per cent annual increase in road transport diesel emissions”.
This is not surprising. Australia has a big “big car” problem – we have too many SUVs and utes, and we keep getting lots more of them.
In the mid-1990s, about three in four new vehicle sales were ordinary cars, such as sedans and hatchbacks.
Since then, the sales of bigger vehicles have exploded.
Sports utility vehicles (SUVs) have grown from one in 14 sales to more than half (56 per cent) of all sales. Similarly, “other vehicles”, a category that mostly represents utes, have grown from one in six sales to more than one in four.
A common argument is that these ever-larger vehicles are needed by tradies and farmers for work, or by families to pull caravans and boats.
Any attempts to reduce the growth in the “big car” fleet meet........