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Australia is under attack from an invasive species: absolutely massive trucks. The epitome of the trend is the enormous RAM 3500 and its obese American stablemates, the RAM 2500 and RAM 1500. The Chevrolet Silverado is an equally obscene American lump. These are sold as passenger cars but their scale resembles a bus or truck.

Even before the American trucks landed on our streets, jutting out over the edge of the parking bay and blocking footpaths, we had swung to big utes. Hilux and Ranger have been battling it out for supremacy since 2018, as the next chart shows.

What’s interesting is to look even earlier. We weren’t always obsessed with massive utes. In fact, the biggest-selling cars in this country were, for several years, petite. We drove hatchbacks.

What was going on? If you look at the following chart you get a hint of it. Fuel rose to $1.50 a litre in 2011 and stayed there. We fled from big, thirsty family cars to smaller, more frugal ones. Then petrol prices slumped in 2015, and after a bit of a lag, the mega utes came onto the scene.

This raises a possibility. The current terrifying rise in fuel prices could easily lead to another changing of the guard. Honestly, who wants to buy a three-tonne truck when the price of diesel is $2.249 a litre?

We may even be able to see something like this happening already. Sales of light commercial vehicles and utes are up only 0.4% this year, even as the overall vehicle market is up 9.9%.  That means they’re a shrinking part of the market. Meanwhile small and medium SUVs are growing their share of the market very quickly.

The pivot

If fuel prices remain high, we could see a pivot away from big heavy cars and back to smaller ones. Not necessarily hatchbacks. Even if we all went back to medium SUVs that would be a big improvement.

Such a change won’t necessarily happen immediately. Consumer behaviour is herd-like. One reason to buy a RAM is because Andrew from work has a RAM. Also, consumers and suppliers must dance a tango. Toyota will turn some production lines back to Corollas and Camrys if they sense demand rising, but that will take time.

All this is without even talking about the rise in electric vehicles, which are in the ascendancy and provide some refuge from high fuel prices, albeit not total refuge because electricity prices are high too!

Why be so mean to big cars?

Big cars are a mix of good and bad for their owners. For everyone else, they’re just bad. Which is the exact sort of thing we should regulate.

  • If a big car crashes into a small car, the small car occupants are more likely to die because of the high centre of mass and the mass differential, while the driver of the big car probably lives.
  • Big cars have worse visibility around them at low speed.
  • Big cars block everyone else’s view in traffic, creating an arms race where if you’d like to gain some situational awareness on the road, you too need a big car.
  • Big cars kill pedestrians and cyclists at higher rates.
  • Big cars don’t fit in car parks easily.
  • Big cars do more damage to road surfaces.
  • Big cars emit more pollution, usually.

It will always be easier to discourage big cars in a period where consumers are swinging away from them anyway. It’s better to nudge people in the direction they’re headed already.

So how do we tax big cars to encourage consumers to buy smaller ones? The answer is to do what Europe does.

France brought in a weight tax in 2020, whacking vehicles over 1,800kg with an extra tax of €10 for every kilo over the threshold. A similar tax in Australia would add about $7,250 to the price of a RAM 1500, which weighs 2,500 kg, and $3,000 to the price of a Hilux, which weighs 2,100kg. Enough to deter their purchase perhaps? Certainly enough to slow down the pace of our arms race towards ever larger vehicles.

The rush to EVs is moving us towards smaller vehicles, but not necessarily lighter ones. An EV battery is a very heavy thing. This means EVs in an accident deliver a lot of force to the thing they crash into, and have longer stopping distances. It also means EVs generate a lot of tyre wear. And as car engines become cleaner but cars become heavier, tyre particles are a significant part of the air pollution from traffic.

EVs struggle with wind resistance at speed, so most EVs are not tall. But they can be very heavy. And what’s more, to make EVs seem cool and expand the segment, many brands are introducing big electric trucks. Tesla has its CyberTruck and Ford is bringing in the Ford F-150 Lightning, available with a battery of up to 131kWh and a weight of 2,800kg.

The EV tax introduced in Victoria could come in handy here. The tax of 2.8 cents per kilometre just needs to be discounted for lighter vehicles and, boom, you’ve got a structure that encourages buying a lighter car. Which is exactly the sort of behaviour we should be encouraging.

Are you sick of seeing big utes and American-style trucks on our roads? Have you embraced the massive car craze? Or are you looking to transition to an electric vehicle? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.