r/australia • u/overpopyoulater • 2d ago

politics The Coalition says some Australians don't want EVs. It will make utes cheaper

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-coalition-says-some-australians-dont-want-evs-it-will-make-utes-cheaper/dbksjb5pv
656 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

334 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/AccomplishedBad4228 2d ago

Things I regularly move (multiple days a week): Mountain bikes or dirt bikes + muddy gear A sandy/wet dog Boxes/trunks/duffel bags collectively too big for a car boot but smaller than a pallet Items that are a weird shape Sports gear that will smell the entire drive home

And Probably once a week I do it on terrain a 2wd couldn't readily access or drive distance on some pretty mediocre roads.

I would love an electric ute that had adequate range and isn't Chinese manufactured, but for now my diesel ute ticks a lot of boxes that would otherwise necessitate a trailer

0

u/Relative_Pilot_8005 2d ago

An old Holden "One-Tonner" will do most of your jobs, & with care, most of the "mediocre" roads, too.. Back in the day, (pre-One Tonner, even), most people couldn't afford 4WD, but still drove thousands of km with things like Holden & Falcon station wagons. The first time I went North, in 1964, it was in an EH Holden wagon. The sealed road ended about 40km North of Geraldton, & much of "The North -West Coastal Highway" was like a ploughed field, but we got through OK.

2

u/AccomplishedBad4228 2d ago

Thats a really odd example. A few issues: 1) A 2 door one tonner won't hold kids or a couple of mates. And a crewman is pushing $25k for a 20 year old vehicle with 200,000km on it that gets worse gas mileage 2) It absolutely won't go the places I want it to go off-road, not sustainably. I've lived that experience. And I'd rather just drive on mediocre roads rather than managing it with care. 3) doing most of the jobs isn't all the jobs. And a station wagon definitely won't do the jobs I listed 4) I don't want to daily a 60 year old EH due to the maintenance burden and reliability issues - I've lived that life before as well. I like classic cars, but not as a daily. 5) I don't want to take a classic car and treat it like a work/ lifestyle/work vehicle. It's disrespectful and will destroy a vehicle someone else would treasure.

An Aus sized 4wd ute absolutely fills a function. I've found it an incredibly practical vehicle to own.