What do Europeans know about trusty Aussie ute?
Itried to buy a ute yesterday. Not just any ute, but a ute that meets the new European standards Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen snuck in three days before Christmas. We are told how fabulous they are on paper, so I was keen to actually give one a run around the farm.
The sales girl ran through her nationwide database and said: “I am really sorry, but currently, I am unable to suggest any models that qualify for Euro 6D standards.”
So I went down to my local regional car dealership and asked them if any of them had even seen one of these wonderful utes that we are told meet Euro 6D standards at any road shows or events, and not one of them had.
“Don’t sweat it,” the dealer told me. “We will all be driving EVs.”
And then he laughed and laughed at his own joke.
We don’t have a single ute that qualifies for Euro 6D on the Australian market right now – and phasing in over next year, that’s all we will eventually be allowed to buy brand new.
Rather than letting the market have a look at these new utes before the new regulations are enforced, they are telling us to buy a vehicle that nobody has even been able to take for a test drive. Just have a look at the specs. The Euro 6D standard equivalent of one of Australia’s best-selling vehicles, the Toyota HiLux, that is sold in the UK has a 2.4-litre engine. That’s about half the capacity of the Toyota LandCruiser we use to spray weeds on the farm at the moment.
That engine is just dandy on a sealed road in the middle of the city but will it be enough when you have weight on the back and need to go up a rough track uphill?
We will be forced into far less powerful vehicles thanks to Bowen and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who between the two of them wouldn’t know how to change a spark plug.
For farmers, plumbers, builders, couriers and delivery people, the work vehicle is an appendage of the body. If you can’t move it, lift it, carry it, or pull it out, the ute will – or once would. After 2025, buying a new ute that can carry tools and half a tonne of concrete up a hill will start to become a distant memory.
While Albanese’s ministry has begun each day this week earnestly talking about the soaring cost of living, a few days before Christmas they dropped in the sneaky regulation to ostensibly save the planet that will make vehicles, fuel and services even more expensive.
Consultation with motorists ran for less than one month in the lead-up to Christmas 2022.
Then, under the cover of Christmas in 2023, it changed the reg to eventually ban the sale of new cars that do not meet specific European 6D standards – all as part of this inane fascination with trying to imitate Europe.
The average size of a farm in Europe is less than 50 acres. Even small farms in Australia are 10 times that size. The average farm in Australia is more than 200 times that size, and the average Australian cropping farm is more than 300 times a European one.
We are nothing like Europe. Not only are our farms vastly bigger, but our terrain is harder to traverse. An electric vehicle that can hurtle around the undulating 50 acres of a European dairy farm will quickly lose its spark running up the steep rocky mountains of Weabonga carrying 500 litres of weed spray.
A plumber who starts a day fixing a leak and then needs to cart out half a tonne of asphalt isn’t going to get very far without grunt.
Anything that makes their work tools less effective will make your bill to fix the pipe more expensive – or will make them poorer.
In announcing the changes, Mr Bowen claimed European standards would cut 18 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
The federal government ignored the pleas of manufacturers, who argued that newer vehicle technology is incompatible with Australia’s current fuel.
Even right-hand drive manufacturers such as Toyota argued the “regulatory system introduced needs to take into consideration the unique conditions of the Australian market, and therefore it is not appropriate to apply the same parameters as used in overseas markets”. Such as Europe.
Keep in mind that Australia is 1 per cent of the global car market.
How many manufacturers will make specific right-hand drive utility trucks for us that meet European standards?