I've lived both in France and Australia.

Australians love 4 wheels drive and bigger cars. In some cases it's justified for obvious reasons: rough environments with less infrastructure (bush, outback..). In other cases it is for softer reasons: a big camping culture, having a big car being a social status, towing your boat/jet ski etc.

Also a few other points to consider:

_ Australia enjoyed economic growth for a long time and Australians are rich.

_ Fuel is cheap. According to www.globalpetrolprices.com right now a liter of gasoline is 0.74 euros compared to 1.33 for France

_ The road infrastructure is more favourable for big cars than in Europe (big/plenty parking spots in most towns in Australia).

It’s funny: as an Australian that has visited the USA a couple of times (and never been to Europe), I’d repeat half of your points but for America rather than Australia. Some Australians certainly have large vehicles without good cause, but that number is nowhere near as big as in America. (Notwithstanding this, my Dad and I have discussed the concept of a ban or extreme tax on owning big vehicles unless you can justify why you need them (e.g. tradie or large family), with country dwellers immediately exempt for convenience.) And fuel is way cheaper in the USA than in Australia.

You need to go to Europe to see the little cars then.

Australia has half price petrol to Europe and you see this in both car size and engine size.

Also I have read (newspaper so who knows) that Australia allows far more fuel inefficient cars than Europe.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-11/australians-car-not-a...

But equally we have a lower percentage of diesel cars which is great for not dying

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170918093337.h...

I don't see why a large family would be an excuse. You need a large vehicle because you chose to need a large vehicle?

A large family creates many future taxpayers. The state has an interest in subsidizing or at least not discouraging the creation of large families

That seems like an oversimplification. Rural states receive more in benefits than they pay in federal tax. Large families by necessity are going to favor rural areas and states. It is not clear to me how a large family is a net tax benefit, there are too many other factors to consider.

Having more people pay tax does not mean there is a net increase in tax collected.

> It is not clear to me how a large family is a net tax benefit

Some of the children from a large rural families will move to cities and make careers that pay lots of taxes. Cities almost always have lower birthrates than countryside.

Yes, we need children. That's not a question. The question is if a single couple needs to produce so many children they drive a vehicle so massive is earns tax breaks.

In this context, I assume a "large family" is 3 or 4 children (a 5 seat sedan cannot physically, legally fit 4 children and two parents, and due to the size of modern carseats it can be dicey or impossible to fit 3 of them in compact or midsize sedans even for a 3-child family).

Even just maintaining replacement rate fertility requires an average of 2.1 children TFR, which means some families would need to have 3 or 4 children to get there since other families will have only 2 or 1 child.

In France, you end up paying a lower tax on your vehicle the more children you have, so a family with four children might pay the same taxes on a large diesel as a childless couple with a tiny gas car. I was trying to register my 3-cylinder 1.0 liter vehicle, just to find out I’d have to pay 1500 Euro tax for my gas guzzler. Ugh.

Most things I need, I need because I chose to need them.

> towing your boat/jet ski etc.

A 180-200 BHP sedan can tow a trailer quite easily. You don't need a big SUV for that.

Spotted the "Victoria on the move" plates struggling to accelerate uphill in Queensland on a single lane road delaying the locals trip by an hour to get milk.

horsepower is rarely the limiting factor for a sedan's towing capacity. a sedan's chassis is only designed to withstand accelerating and stopping its own weight (plus a margin for safety and internal cargo of a reasonable mass). you could probably get away with towing a jetski with a typical sedan, but anything much heavier than that risks bending the chassis. even if a car can tow something without deforming itself, the change in weight distribution can make for a very unsafe situation.

I've seen SOOOO many sedans and station wagons pulling trailers here in Europe. The Dutch are especially fond of camping with their trailers and I rarely see any of them using SUVs or anything bigger.

What you're saying is likely not true.

Absolutely. My ex used to drive on the autobahn using an A3 to tow almost 750kg of horse float and horse. The trailer has its own brakes. As long as you don’t drive car and trailer straight off a curb it’s not bending anything.

Here in Australia and New Zealand we regularly tow boats with Aussie sedans like a Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_Falcon_XR8_Ute_...

13.1 includes buses and trucks. Actual for passenger vehicles is 10.6.

https://www.bitre.gov.au/sites/default/files/is_091.pdf:

“The average rate of fuel consumption across all Australian vehicles in 2016 was 13.1 l/100km. However, this includes buses and trucks which are overwhelmingly used for business purposes. Given that this study is focused on the vehicle costs of Australian households (and not businesses), Figure 1 presents the average rate of fuel consumption for the three types of vehicles which have significant private use, namely passenger vehicles, motorcycles and light commercial vehicles. Motorcycles are relatively fuel efficient using 5.6 litres of fuel per 100 km travelled in 2016, compared to 10.6 l/100km for passenger vehicles and 12.0 l/100 km for light commercial vehicles.”

That's still surprisingly high.

I think it's likely that the average Australian vehicle is heavier, since the average European/Australian passenger vehicle is the same age (10.x years).

Maybe our sulferous crap fuel has something to do with it too. I don't know.

Many of the cars you see on European streets would seem a bit... small... to many Australians.

And the roads in reverse. Australian roads are massive (and fast) compared to Europe.

Outside of the cities, this isn't true - Australian speed limits and average driving speed on highways is much lower than basically anywhere in Europe.

Inside cities, Australia definitely does have higher average speeds than inside most European cities though.

This is true of urban areas but not expressways. Motorway limits vary from 120 (Spain) to 140 (Poland) with Germany having sections of unlimited autobahn.

It seems insane to me as well. My 2010 Mazda 3, used almost entirely on country driving with an average speed of 81km/h since I got it, sits at an average of 5.2L/100km. I recall figures from a couple of family members with similar or slightly larger cars on mostly Melbourne suburban driving, and they’re something like 8–9L/100km. My parents’ Nissan Elgrand (2007 I think?) hit something like 13–15L/100km before it got switched to LPG, if I recall correctly, and it was acknowledged to be a huge fuel guzzler (so they got rid of it once enough of their children had left home that they didn’t need it), far more than the smaller-and-lighter-but-same-seat-count ’86 Tarago had been.

Just to add another data point, I had a 2005 Mazda 6 V6 Wagon and I tracked the fuel usage for an entire year. Ended up a 10.2L/100km. Something I found was horrendous compared to my friends' Corollas and Civics.

Mazda Cx7 here. 10l/100km highway, 12l city. Pretty in efficient older Mazdas. That said much larger cx9 with 3.7l engine uses same.

Back in 2010 both me and my parents owned Mazda 3 (model year 2009) cars. They live in the suburbs with no traffic lights for a kilometre in every direction. I lived in an inner city (CBD fringe) apartment. Their car consistently reported 7.1 L/100km average whereas mine consistently reported 12.5 L/100km average. Both would get the same ~6.5 on highway driving.

Point is, road conditions and driving style affect fuel economy far more than the marginal difference between vehicles of a similar size class.

Can confirm I do 8-9l per 100km in Melbourne with my Toyota Corolla.

But when Im in traffic in the morning the number of 'consumer' (non work purpose) SUV / 4WDs is fairly significant and they would all be doing at least the average.

(It occurs to me now, hours later, that I completely forgot to mention that my Mazda 3 is a diesel.)

Holden/Fords used to manufacture locally. There’s a bunch of not very economical V8’s driving around as similar performant more economical European cars got a 30% luxury car tax to give AU manufacturing incentives.

Now Holden/Ford have shut down here everyone seems to drive a Toyota Hilux / Landcruiser. Tradies get tax benefits buying an expensive Hilux, can use it as a family car as they have dual cab and can take it in the bush doing 4x4. Landcruiser are popular with those who drive in the outback due to being suited to that terrain.

As a lot of cars on the road are Hilux utes the average driver wants a similar sized SUV “as they are safer”

You also have Australia’s lack of commitment to emission policies, manufacturers use Australia to offload cars that don’t meet emission standards elsewhere in the world.

This is because it is not correct. Australians on average do drive bigger cars than in europe, but the average petrol consumption of passenger vehicles is 10.8 l/100km.

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/avera...

The last time I was in Australia I rented a Toyota Landcruiser and went from Cairns to Cape York and back. Probably all the cars on that road did 13 l / 100 km or worse. Then I rented a small Kia from Sydney to Bathurst. Maybe I refueled only before returning the car in Sydney.

Has to be including heavy vehicles?

Australians still by V8’s but not that many of them can be...

It is including heavy vehicles, but also motorcycles. The average for "passenger vehicles" is still about 10.5 l/km. Just bigger cars I think.

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/car-insurance/research/avera...

Motorcycles, perhaps surprisingly, aren't all that much more efficient than regular gas cars. The tl;dr is that their aerodynamics are terrible, and their engines not tuned for fuel efficiency.

Hmn. Brief research seems to show that you're more correct than I would have expected, but also that it's less true than I think you imply.

For example, https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10310 gives motorcycles as almost 2x as efficient as cars, almost 3x as efficient as "light truck / van".

Given that enormous amount of metal that's not being hauled around, I would have expected a bigger difference. Nonetheless, for single-occupant travel, halving transportation carbon footprint would be quite a great thing.

>Before any new car hits the showroom, the EPA runs an emissions evaluation and calculates a “CO2 equivalent” – a single number that represents GHGs CO2, NO X , HC, and CO. The CO2 equivalent units are in grams/mile, so a higher number means more GHGs and more climate damage. For a 2WD 2020 Ram 1500 HFE on the highway, that number is 340 g/mile. Unfortunately, motorcycle emissions data isn’t documented by the EPA. This is a real issue, because if the problem isn’t measured you don’t know what to fix.

>There are a few independent studies that shed light on the issue, however. One published in 2008 by Swiss researchers took real data from several motorbikes including a BMW R1150GS. The GS highway CO2 equivalent is a stunning 380 g/mile (17% worse than the Dodge)! They found that a 1993 Honda Shadow VX600 with only 583 ccs spews a whopping 408 g/mile. That is twice as much as a new Honda Civic!

>Other studies would suggest the problem is even worse. Global MRV tested out their portable emissions equipment in 2011 comparing 12-motorcycles to 12-cars of varying years (this was featured on an episode of Mythbusters). Motorcycles were almost universally terrible, with motorbikes from the 2000’s producing 3,220% more NOx and 8,065% more CO2 than cars of the same era. California has the largest motorcycle ridership in the country, and in 2008 the LA Times reported that while motorcycles accounted for 1% of all miles traveled, they were responsible for 10% of the state’s smog-producing emissions.

Taken from https://autowise.com/motorcycle-vs-car-emissions/ .

I've had my M1 since 1994, so I enjoy riding, so please don't take this as all negative. But it's important to look at the real data, which is much worse than people think with regards to emissions and pollution.

Many motorcycles didn't come with cats in the 2000s, combined with lots of high strung 600s running massive valve overlap.

But the modern class of commuter bike has got to be pretty good. Drag coefficient is poor but they're also a much smaller area, and city driving is more forgiving for aero.

This is a key point. Fuel consumption on my bike goes from about 22km/l all the way up to 15km/l if I increase my speed from 70km/h to 130km/h. Essentially the killer is wind drag. I'm riding a bike with notably poor aerodynamics, I suppose sport bikes do better in this regard.

Ah, hmn, that is a very good point.

Per my previous comment, motorcycles are more efficient that cars, in terms of consumption of fuel. (though not as much as I'd have thought)

But they're also worse on emissions, which is the public harm that is of greater interest here.

And yikes, those numbers.

It's pretty shocking, isn't it.

//

The good news is that as batteries improve, bike like the all-electric Zero line are going to get both more popular and more affordable. I'm looking forward to when I can get one!

This is very surprising. But on reflection I suppose it makes sense, because the typical motorcycle is designed to be a performance machine not a commuter vehicle. So the engineering trade-offs are probably more similar to those made for sports cars.

Yesterday morning just before 6AM we had some sort of maniac coming around entire suburb and reving their bike, just having a joy ride.

I was about to maim him. I hate loud vehicles.

I suppose just larger cars coming from larger roads and smaller fuel tax ?