In the age of high petrol prices, reality check on hybrids
Joshua Dowling Motoring EditorTHE type of cars we drive will change dramatically within five to 10 years. The world’s biggest car makers have accelerated the development of electric cars and other more fuel-efficient vehicles.
They will not be in showrooms within five years as it takes five years to design, engineer and build a new model.
As it happens, that is the time the Government is giving consumers to acquire more fuel-efficient cars before the carbon tax could start affecting petrol prices. When the carbon tax scheme starts in 2010, the Government will cut fuel excise to offset the effect of the new tax. After 2013 it will review the offset.
Yesterday it would not guarantee that offsets would continue after 2013.
There are a number of affordable fuel-efficient cars you can buy today - and whose resale values will be better protected against rising petrol prices. Lost in the hype around hybrid cars are a number of safe and affordable fuel misers priced below $20,000.
Models such as the Toyota Yaris, Mazda2, Suzuki Swift and Honda Jazz sip fuel at a rate of between 5.5 and 6.5 litres per 100 kilometres. A Toyota Prius hybrid consumes about 4.5 litres per 100 kilometres but costs almost twice as much to buy.
Australians have been quick to embrace smaller “city” cars - sales in the first six months of this year are up 6 per cent compared with the same period last year. Overall, new vehicle sales have increased by just 3.5 per cent, and sales of large cars such as the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon are down by 16 per cent compared with last year’s figures.
Resale values provide an interesting - and almost instant - barometer for the changing tastes of car buyers.
For example, an 18-month-old Commodore or Falcon fleet sedan can now be bought for as little as $12,000 despite costing $38,000 when new. A basic Toyota Corolla of the same age can fetch up to $18,000 even though it only cost about $22,000 when new.
Used-car buyers are deserting large cars because of their perception that six-cylinder engines guzzle petrol. This, in turn, has forced fleets to reconsider what cars they buy as they are losing so much on large sedans at resale time.
All this has led Holden to reconsider going ahead with a hybrid Commodore.
Two months ago a visiting General Motors executive let slip that a petrol-electric Commodore was about two years away. But this week the managing director of Holden, Mark Reuss, cast doubt on the project.
“We aren’t going to provide a solution; we are going to provide many solutions. One of the many solutions may or may not be a hybrid Commodore,” Mr Reuss told the automotive industry journal Go Auto.
He said hybrid cars did not make sense when “the price of a hybrid for the average person anywhere in the world and the benefit of that price and cost and payback on fuel” were considered.
Today’s car bosses talk about “the gradual electrification” of the motor car. That is, petrol engines in hybrid cars will get smaller and electric motors will get bigger as battery technology improves enough to allow motorists to get the same driving range between refills as they do today.
In the meantime, Holden and other car makers are also working on LPG and ethanol-blended fuel technology.
However, while LPG and 85 per cent ethanol fuels are cheaper than regular unleaded, they burn faster and therefore have less driving range between refills.
Australia’s biggest-selling LPG car, the Ford Falcon, burns up to 50 per cent more fuel than a regular petrol Falcon (15 litres per 100 kilometres compared with 10.5 litres per 100 kilometres).
Testing by the Herald has shown that E85 unleaded burns twice as fast as regular unleaded, reducing driving range from 400 kilometres on one tank to about 200 kilometres.
So, for the next few years at least, the so-called city cars make the most sense when it comes to cutting your fuel bill.
May
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