Major car brands accused of trying to write 'loopholes' into Australia's looming fuel efficiency laws
Automotive brands are being accused of pushing a "loophole" policy so they can keep selling dirty and inefficient vehicles to Australian consumers.
Where's the consumer incentive to go green? The wait time on a hybrid toyota is 2 years. Mazda and Kia both have hybrid or in some cases plugin hybrid of their flagship SUVs, but not available in Aus. A plug in hybrid Outlander costs you 25k ontop of a standard petrol outlander. I WANT to do the right thing, but I'm not given the choice.
The system is working as intended. Thanks for confirming
Having recently had an outlander as a hire car overseas I'm amazed that anyone would willing subject themselves to one as a daily driver. What an absolute peice of shit lol. For the money of the flagship PHEV outlander, you could get an EV6 or Tesla model 3.
Anyway the actual green decision is to drive less and use alternatives more. However that's not an option for some.
I drive an old Outlander (10 years old), and rather like it. I mean, it's a basic enough family car. It doesn't do anything fancy. But it doesn't give us any grief, either.
This is how free markets work. Increased demand for certain variants of a product will inflate the price of that product accordingly.
It is worth contemplating that due to some manufacturers complete disregard for the environmental damage from mining Cobalt and Lithium (as well as the societal damage from Conflict Mining), a large EV may be more destructive than a modern ICE vehicle.
If government invested in a renewables program by installing charging stations almost equal to the amount of fuel servos we have, and heavily incentivise electric vehicles we would see a major transition without car manufacturers shoving corruption in our faces and money towards lobby groups.
Unlikely. Car manufacturers don't particularly care how you're going to charge it. That's a you problem not a them problem.
They're resisting because Oz has been a place they can dump polluting cars that are cheap to make. The big markets like EU and California have mandated EVs, if they can delay the cutoff here it buys them time to do the ramp ups they should have been doing for a decade.
Toyota in particular is the worst culprit, they spent a lot of money in the US trying to prevent ICE being banned, because they bet on hydrogen and lost, now they're doing exactly the same delay tactics here.
Thanks for the input. I hope I was at least making sense previously even though it was more of a utopian society that we'd probably get to see something like that.
I'm not having kids, but I'd like for the youth of today to grow up in a more eco friendly lifestyle without the need for gas in the future.
Car manufacturers donβt particularly care how youβre going to charge it
Bullshit. Of course manufacturers are concerned about charging networks. If you can't charge their car you won't buy their car.
they bet on hydrogen and lost
How so? Hydrogen hasn't been banned anywhere. There's still a lot of implementation problems but it's a pretty neat tech. There's 3x huge solar projects going ahead in West Aus to crack water and produce hydrogen.
BEVs are a greenwashing scam. They are frankly just a ploy by corporations to be dependent on their product just like we are to oil. In fact, it's even worse since it is part of the Chinese government's agenda to of dominating the car industry. Much of what we hear may legitimately be propaganda from the Chinese government.
Toyota is fundamental correct in their assessment. The BEV is destined for failure since it has no purpose but the serve some specific group or interest. As a result, they've invested in alternative ideas such as hydrogen cars. Instead of being the curve, they are likely far ahead of it. It is everyone else that wasting all of their resources on a dead-end.
They are funding charging stations, and the networks are pretty decent now for long trips.
There's still holes that need filled in, especially when you get away from population centres and main roads, but you can drive from Port Douglas in far north Queensland to Adelaide in any new EV.
Adelaide to Perth is currently a no. There's a 2000km stretch with one fast charger. Not impossible, but it means several days of slow charging along the route.
As long as corruption is rewarding, this won't change.
Hopefully the politicians can do the right thing for once rather than being corrupt arseholes. Certainly plenty of previous examples of our pissweak pollies letting "industry" dictate what suits them instead of the public.
I'd like to see average fleet sales emissions ramping to zero by 2030.
They will see the Earth scorched along with everything that walks, crawls, flies, swims or grows here before they give up their lucrative gig at the omnicide factory. Irredeemable.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Fears are growing that Australia will continue to be a dumping ground for dirty and inefficient vehicles, as the federal government designs laws to limit the carbon emissions of new cars sold.
And the debate is getting divisive, with Elon Musk's Tesla and the Climate Council even accusing Australia's biggest car lobby of pushing a "loophole" policy that could slow the transition.
The vast majority supported the general premise of the standards, including submissions by Tesla, the Climate Council, Toyota, Hyundai, and Australia's biggest car manufacturer lobby group, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).
InfluenceMap's program manager Ben Youriev told ABC News that the FCAI has led a "strategic" and "negative" campaign against climate policy.
"We're focusing on getting the design of the fuel efficiency standards right," the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen recently told the ABC's Q+A program.
The federal government's expected to announce a clearer policy position on its looming fuel efficiency laws by the end of the year.
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Name and shame ?