Westserve

Automotive short-sightedness

All of a sudden everyone in Australia seems to be getting seriously concerned about our dependence on oil.

Probably because we have largely been sheltered from some of the excesses of fuel prices that Europe and other places have experienced in recent years. But of course, that’s why Europe has such a great range of good performing very economic turbo-diesel vehicles, that can take advantage of the cheaper-than-petrol prices of diesel in that part of the world.

My mind has turned to this topic of late because I have to change my car in the next month or two. I’m very fortunate in being able to pay for a car via salary sacrifice. In the context of my role with the church, it allows me to drive a new car much cheaper than most people can do, due to fleet discounts, and the tax-exempt status of the church. So I’ve been changing cars every nine months for the past few years.
But that’s probably going to change this time around, because of shifts in the market. So my choice of vehicle this time around will probably have to last me 3-5 years.

My thinking has gone this way:

• I really, really miss having a wagon of some kind, so if I’m keeping this next car for while, I definitely want a wagon.
• For reasons of economy and mildly greenish leanings, I’m happy to downsize to a degree. Because of my physical size (nearly 2 metres tall, and too many Kgs), I can’t go too small.
• With those two factors being the big ones in my mind, my choices hovered around these sorts of vehicles:
  • Holden Captiva
  • Nissan X-Trail
  • Mazda 6 Wagon
  • Mitsubishi Outlander
  • Maybe some of the other soft-roaders like the Toyota RAV and the Honda CR-V
• I really don’t need off road (or even pretend off road) ability, but that seems to be the main way to get a wagon of some kind these days.

I liked the idea of a turbo diesel-powered vehicle – Good performance, excellent economy. But… a price premium on the car and on the fuel, which means it would take me at least three years of driving to break even over an identical petrol powered vehicle. Assuming everything in the market stays more of less as they are now.
Which brings me to the title of this article.
Diesel is not a magic answer to the declining oil problem, or the pollution issue, but it generally is a reasonable interim step while better long term solutions can be found.

So why does the Australian government not take steps to encourage greater use of economical diesel engines in private cars? The distribution system is there already, it’s cheaper to refine, and is generally better for the environment (yes, I know about the greater particulate output of diesel, but overall, diesel is a superior fuel).
Instead, diesel is anything from 4c-12c a litre more expensive than petrol. Enough to seriously add to the time taken to break even on the cost of a new diesel car.

So, having done the maths and looked at most of the vehicles listed above, the petrol-only X-Trail is standing out as the best bang-for-buck for me.
I’ll wait until all the quotes are in, but I’m mildly annoyed that government policy will mean that it makes more sense for me to continue driving a petrol-powered vehicle for the time being…

Update:
Just got back from a quick drive of the CVT auto X-Trail (the local dealer is only about 400m up the road). I have to say it was quite remarkable. The CVT is a ‘stepless’ auto, and some sophisticated electronics means that the car is always in the ‘right’ gear for the situation.
But it is a strange experience to have your foot on the accelerator, and have the engine revs hit the middle of the power band and stay there while the car catches up. It also means that even on quite gentle downhill grades, as you lift your foot off the go pedal, you get a gentle engine braking effect as you would in a manual.
Pretty impressive.