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.
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.
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, 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 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.
And what an awful hobby it is
Please keep discussions civil and respectful
