Australia’s war on gas guzzling utes in the name of reducing emissions may be putting another species on the endangered list — the grey nomad.
The great Australian tradition of caravanning, whether taking in the Great Australian Bight along the Nullarbor Plain or through the red centre to Uluru, will be all but impossible using the current crop of electric vehicles, industry experts warn.
“Until we have an EV able to tow comfortably for 500 to 600 kilometres without the battery dying, it isn’t the time to be taxing people who are buying utes or SUVs for towing or long-distance travel,” said Paul Maric, founder of CarExpert.com.au.
“The electric vehicles they want everyone to drive aren’t capable of towing and long-distance travel people are doing in diesels. And as a result you’re seeing responses like … people thinking they’re having their weekends and holidays taken away from them.”
‘Holidays taken away’
The Caravan Industry Association of Australia (CIAA), which represents around 1800 caravan parks and close to 900 manufacturers, has warned both the tourism and trade sides of the industry face significant risks under the government’s proposed new fuel efficiency standards slated to take effect next year.
While welcoming the push to reduce emissions, the CIAA has called for the new regulations to be “technology agnostic” rather than trying to artificially drive EV take-up.
“We know the transition to electrification holds a lot of opportunity but also a lot of challenges, particularly for rural and regional areas,” said Luke Chippindale, general manager for government relations and corporate communications at the CIAA.
“When I look at the emission standards, there’s a three-times multiplier there to encourage electric vehicles [compared with] 1.5 for biofuels, which means the market isn’t incentivised to bring on other technologies despite the fact they would like to.”
While standard battery EVs may be the “answer for urban areas”, other technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels and synthetics may be more suitable for rural areas, according to Mr Chippindale.
“How we make that transition away from internal combustion engines is firmly positioned on electrification … but how we get there needs to be left open to the market as opposed to picking EVs,” he said.
There are around 850,000 registered caravans on the road in Australia, according to CIAA, of which 795,000 are towed.
Mr Chippindale said while “we’re fortunate campervans and motorhomes are exempt” from the proposed emissions standards as they are classed as heavy vehicles, that left the vast majority of towed product facing uncertainty.
“Our biggest concern with the emissions standards is they recognise the constraints, that is supply chain and infrastructure [such as charging stations], but there are no discounting factors and no reconciling those two very dramatic issues,” he said.
“I don’t know if [the government] is ignoring our concerns, it’s probably more not being able to answer them. Because the technology was selected, it’s more or less caught the market off-guard, the market is trying to play catch-up.”
‘Electric car climbdown’
Last month, federal parliament launched an inquiry into the transition to electric vehicles.
“Australian motorists are increasingly choosing EVs when purchasing a new car,” committee chair, Labor MP Tony Zappia, said in a statement announcing the inquiry.
“The percentage of EVs sold is growing every year, moving to 7.2 per cent of all new cars sold in 2023 up from less than 3 per cent in 2022. The inquiry will consider the necessary resources, systems and infrastructure for this transition and the impacts of moving away from traditional vehicles. The committee will also explore opportunities such as fuel savings and affordability for residents in outer regions to make this shift beneficial for everyone.”
Asked to comment on the caravan industry’s concerns, Mr Zappia said it was “too early for me to comment on matters that may arise or to draw conclusions about EVs”.
“It is very likely that the caravanning issue will be raised in the course of the inquiry,” he said.
Mr Chippindale noted that in the US, which typically mirrors Australian consumer behaviour, EV sales had plateaued and started to decline slightly amid “unknowns about battery life, refurbishment, the environmental impact on battery upkeep and maintenance”.
Matthew Lynn, financial columnist with the UK’s Telegraph, went so far as to declare this month that “the West’s humiliating electric car climbdown has begun” and that “ambitious plans for an electrification-led industrial revolution are in full-scale retreat”.
“Rewind only a couple of years, and almost every president or prime minister was making electric vehicles the cornerstone of an industrial strategy,” Lynn wrote.
“In reality, amid an onslaught of Chinese competition, and falling sales, the West’s electric vehicle dream is quickly unravelling — and we need to relearn all the lessons in why grand, state-led industrial strategies never work.”
Crackdown on huge utes
Earlier this month, the Albanese government unveiled its proposed new fuel efficiency standards, which the industry warns could spell the end of some of the country’s favourite SUVs and utes — such as the Raptor and XL models of the Ford Ranger, the most popular vehicle sold in Australia in 2023.
While the standards won’t ban any particular model, car brands will be penalised if the average emissions of all the vehicles they import is higher than a cap that will be slashed by more than 60 per cent from 2025 until the end of the decade, under the government’s preferred option for the standard.
As a result, car makers will be forced to sell more zero and low emissions models, or cut back on the sale of popular ute and SUV models, to avoid being hit with fines for breaching the mandatory pollution caps.
Australian Automotive Dealers Association (AADA) boss James Voortman said consumers ultimately risked facing higher prices, or restricted choice, for the most popular models.
“Many utes and SUVs don’t meet the target for next year, let alone the requirements for 2029 — which is more than 60 per cent lower,” Mr Voortman said last week.
“To suggest that there will be as many options for consumers in the space of five years is overly optimistic. We don’t think this is achievable.”
Tony Weber, chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), shared concerns over the significant reduction in emissions, the government’s preferred option, and said affordability and choice must remain a priority.
“Most important is that Australian families and businesses can continue to access the style of vehicle that suits their needs for work and recreation,” Mr Weber said.
“On the surface, the targets seeking a 60 per cent improvement in emissions are very ambitious, and it will be a challenge to see if they are achievable taking into account the total cost of ownership.”
Announcing the policy, Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Transport Minister Catherine King were adamant that affordability and supply of models would not be reduced.
“In countries with vehicle efficiency standards, utes and SUVs are often the top-selling car,” Mr Bowen said. Ms King added that the “international evidence is that it does not have an impact on price”.
But the news has sparked some heated reaction online.
X user Ron Dunn, sharing a picture of caravans and utes perched on the cliffs along the Nullarbor Plain, wrote this week, “Say goodbye to the Great Australian Bight. You’ll never get to travel it, thanks to idiot-boy [Chris Bowen].”
EVs can’t tow
Maric said this kind of response suggested a “misunderstanding” among car-owners about how the emissions standards would operate and that “come 2025 the existing vehicles will get taken off them”, which was not the case.
But he stressed the bottom line was that electric vehicles currently available in Australia were simply not capable of replacing existing utes and SUVs.
Even those coming down the pipeline like the Rivian R1S, a large electric SUV capable of going off-road and towing up to 3.5 tonnes, are all plagued by the same fundamental problem — range.
“The big issue is they become incredibly inefficient when you try to tow a large load,” said Maric, who was recently in the US testing the R1S.
“Existing engines use more fuel [when towing loads] but not exponentially more. EVs are already heavy but then when you put 2.5 tonnes on the back, the battery reduces by more than 50 per cent. It’s like saying you could tow a trailer with 20 horses [with an EV], it’s technically possible but it’s not something you’d do because it’s not realistic.”
The only comparable EV available on the market in Australia, the Chinese-made LDV eT60 dual-cab ute, costs nearly $100,000 and has a driving range of 300 kilometres “before you put anything on the vehicle”.
Mr Chippindale agreed, noting that even a powerful EV pick-up truck like the Ford F-150 Lightning, which is not currently available in Australia, would be at a price point “out of reach for most Australians”.
“The towing capacity, despite being an EV is actually quite good, really the question becomes about range,” he said. “The Lightning, towing a 1.5-tonne trailer, its range capacity is reduced from roughly 500 kilometres to under 100 kilometres.”
Maric said the proposed changes “would make a whole lot of sense if there were alternatives for tradespeople and holiday-makers to buy at the moment”.
He said EVs “work fine for driving in and around the city but ultimately once you go on a longer trip they don’t do they job, and also become more expensive”.
Last month, CarExpert.com.au put a petrol car and an EV — the BMW 740i and the BMW i7 M70 — head-to-head, driving 900 kilometres from Melbourne to Sydney to see which was cheaper.
The result was that electric vehicle “consumed a total of 203.03kWh of energy at a total cost of $131.92”, while “the petrol vehicle on the other hand consumed 56.16 litres of fuel that cost $117.88”.
“Public charging at the moment is unreliable and very expensive,” said Maric.
Even in California, where EV uptake is around 20 per cent, the situation is not much better. “We wanted to test the charging network in California — we were in situations where I was the 10th person in the queue to charge at 11pm,” he said.
“If that’s the future we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”
frank.chung@news.com.au
— with NCA NewsWire