Thursday, February 15, 2024
3AW, Melbourne, Breakfast - Interview
SUV. Yeah. Come on. New car dealers say most Australian...ill purchase an SUV or ute as their next vehicle. Jeff Gwilhum, chief executive of the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce. Jeff, when is an SUV? That's a four wheel drive? Yeah.
Uh, well, SUV, the small SUVs and large SUVs. Then you move into the four wheel drive, the ute category. But both of those are the biggest selling categories of vehicle in Australia.
Okay. So Jeff, then describe what an SUV actually is. It's slightly bigger than a sedan.
Well it's funny, in the olden days an SUV was a really big vehicle that you could get six kids in. Nowadays, even some of the new brands that are coming on and electric brands are called small SUVs. And the definition really has been left open to manufacturers, what they call an SUV, because there's small, medium and large SUVs coming to the car chase, pardon the pun.
What? Why are people why are people's next car? Why is it tending to be an SUV or ute?
Um, because they're the biggest car categories that Australians buy and it's been that way for ten years. Um, people want visibility. They want safety of the vehicle in terms of, you know, if they get hit by another vehicle. Um, and whether we like it or not, culturally, Australians have grown more and more towards bigger vehicles over at least over the last decade. So which is counterintuitive, isn't it?
Um, yeah.
So, Jeff.
Yeah. Sorry, guys.
Jeff, when we think big vehicles, we think USA. So are we catching up to the USA?
Oh, definitely. Uh, as a matter of fact, the United States have got, uh, their fuel efficiency standards, which is basically tailpipe emissions. Their, standards are higher than ours. And yet we've still got bigger SUVs. You know, we know that the government have put out a discussion paper around fuel efficiency standards that will come through sometime this year. Uh, my gut feeling is people will go and buy the vehicle they can this year. If it's a big SUV, there'll be a petrol or diesel. If it's a four wheel drive, it'll be a petrol or diesel. Um, I think as, the cost of living crisis does come in though, you know, I think we should expect, um, people to I think people are going to buy vehicles, to hang on to them longer. Guys, I think that if you're going to go and buy a big vehicle, I think the expectation is I'm going to keep it longer. We expect the car fleet in Australia currently as a 10.2 year car fleet on average. We would expect that to get an older car fleet, both as SUVs come in and as cost of living tighten.
So, Jeff, are all the sedans sitting in the corner saying, what about me?
It isn't fair.
Well, it sort of um, but, you know, this isn't a new trend. This has been there for a long time. We've, you know, we've just gone bigger and there's the I mean, look, I've had a bit of time on my hands.
I've had a bit of time on my hands. Jeff. I reckon yesterday or the day before did I see an ad for a Ford F-150?
Yes, indeed you did. And if you get in one of them, they are rockets. They're beautiful vehicles. And, uh, you know, they're this is the this is one of the challenges for government. You know, we sit down with politicians federally and they say, look, you know, we've got to get a different type of vehicle fleet. We've got to lower emissions. But the cars are fantastic. That's the problem. You get into these things and you think, man, this is a magnificent car. They're easy to buy. Hey, Jeff.
Um, uh, electric. What percentage of the car market now?
Uh, we finished last year, 7.5%. Uh, January is 5.2% for the month of January. But that's slow. That's the slowest month of the year. Anyway, um, I think full electric this year will get up around 9 or 10%. But if you add electric and hybrid, I think that 20% of the car market by the end of the year, this calendar year, 20% of our car market will be electric or hybrid.
Good on you, Jeff. Gwilhum from the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce. We should mak