Where did the cars go? How heavier, costlier SUVs and utes took over Australia's roads

• SUVs (so-called sport utility vehicles) use more fuel per kilometre than standard cars – according to the International Energy Agency, up to 25% more.
• They weigh more than standard cars – about 100 kilograms more.
• In Australia, medium-size SUVs emit 14% more carbon per kilometre travelled than medium-size cars.

SUVs outsell passenger cars 3 to 1

• Back further, in the early 1990s, three-quarters of the new vehicles we bought were passenger cars, and only 8% SUVs.
• Passenger cars accounted for just 17%.
• This means SUVs outsell passenger cars three to one.
• Now they are one in four, outselling passenger cars.

Tax only explains so much

• If an employer provides them and their private use is “minor, infrequent and irregular”, or if they are utes “not designed for the principal purpose of carrying passengers”, they can can escape the fringe benefits tax.
• And from time to time small businesses get offered instant asset writeoffs, which means that all or part of the cost of the car can be written off against tax.

Danger is a perverse selling point

• Australia’s Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics refers to this as the “other side of the coin”.
• That is, I think it might be becoming a perverse and macabre argument for buying SUVs.
• I am not suggesting that danger from SUVs is the only reason for the flood of buyers switching to SUVs.

Tighter standards would help

• The federal government is about to roll out long-overdue fuel efficiency standards, of the kind already common in the rest of the world.
• Ideally, those standards would require the entire fleet of vehicles sold by each manufacturer to meet a gradually-tightening average efficiency standard.
• Putting more electric vehicles into each fleet would help.