Electric vehicle sales almost tripled,to represent just under 3 per cent of new cars on our roads,but SUVs accounted for half of all new car sales last year,up from a quarter of sales 10 years ago,and there are few low-emission options for SUVs and utes on the market.
“We’ve got two trends happening at the same time,and they’re wiping one another out,” said Sandra McKay,head of facilitated reform at the transport commission.
“The most popular cars are SUVs and utes ... and that’s what’s really tempering the overall improvement”.
Transport produces about 18 per cent of Australia’s carbon emissions,a proportion that has been rising steadily over the past 20 years. Cars contribute almost half of the sector’s emissions and light commercial vehicles a fifth.
“The emissions intensity of Australia’s vehicle fleet has essentially flat-lined at a time when other countries are pulling out all the stops.”
Audrey Quicke,a transport researcher at the Australia Institute
The explosion in popularity of large cars has meant small,more fuel-efficient cars have fallen from a quarter of all sales to just one in 10 in the past decade,the report says. And the growth in uptake of EVs in Australia also lags badly behind Europe,where 17 per cent of new sales are electric,China (16 per cent),the United States (5 per cent) and New Zealand (4.4 per cent).
Australia’s average emissions intensity for new passenger cars,SUVs and light commercial vehicles sold last year was 160 grams a kilometre,significantly higher than the European average of 115g/km. About 90 per cent of cars sold in Europe were rated at 160g/km or less,compared to 45 per cent here.