But yes, any environmentalist worth their salt should absolutely support removing all subsidies and tariffs for the car industry. And taxes should be purely based on size of the vehicle and the consequent extra wear and tear they cause to roads, and danger they pose to other drivers.

But we’re talking maybe 10-15% efficiency improvements on maybe 20% of the market, of some sub-fraction of the 14% of emissions from the total transport sector. We’re talking small fractions here.

Question:

I read somewhere that imported cars, especially the European types are far more efficient (emissions wise) compared to an Australian produced car. Is that right?

If it is wouldn’t we simply better off removing subsidies, tariffs/ taxes on imported cars thereby reducing emissions etc. I would assume that SUV purchases would be transferred over to more efficient sedans etc as a lot of SUV purchases are really tax arbitrage.

In other words if the BMW 5 or Mercedes 2 litre became the standard middle class car here (they could be within that price range if taxes were removed) would it improve our emissions output all that much?

You may be right. Actually I think he’s being rather more open-minded/ended than either my teaser or your characterisation suggest. And that’s good, because it may well be that there are no easy or universal answers. But summarising it that way wouldn’t catch people’s attention, so I hope Robert will forgive me for drastically distorting his message for cheap tabloid purposes.

- Lederhosen
- a BMW check engine light reset tool
- cabbage, lots of cabbage.