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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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
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.
I was at a shopping center and the car park was almost full. Then i saw this dumb bitch 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
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.
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.
I said my use case was off-roading in the Vic High Country. So your reply to that was ignorant. Simple.
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.
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
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.
