Best and worst car brands named in race to zero emissions

The tightening of CO2 emissions standards overseas is forcing car-makers to embrace electric vehicles, but Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world and risks becoming a dumping ground for dirty vehicles.

That’s according to the Climate Council, the leading climate change non-profit organisation in Australia.

The council has this week urged the federal government to “get real and set fuel efficiency standards that results in 100 per cent of new vehicles sold in Australia being zero emissions as soon as possible”.

Failing this, the council says Aussie motorists could be in jeopardy of paying high prices for EVs and being stuck with “expensive, petrol-guzzling cars that hurt household budgets, our health and the environment”.

According to the council, Australia is one of only two developed nations that does not have mandatory fuel efficiency standards – the other being Russia – which carry tough penalties when car-makers fail to meet them.

This has placed Australia more than a decade behind the progress on vehicle CO2 emissions reductions made in other markets such as Europe.

The Climate Council’s ‘race to zero’ ranking shows which mainstream car brands are closest to reaching that target.

Race to Zero Ranking 2022 – Best to Worst

You can check out the Climate Council’s full report here, but there does appear to be some errors in the assumptions and data.

Ford, for example, sells an inordinate amount of diesel utes and SUVs in Australia and has only committed to going full-electric worldwide by 2040 – five years after Europe.

What’s more, under the current voluntary scheme put in place by Australia’s car industry in 2020, Ford is among the highest-polluting mass-market brands with a 192.3g/km CO2 emissions average across range – and it’s also missing its annual reduction targets.

However, the Climate Council has ranked the Blue Oval brand fourth based on its European target.

The Climate Council’s rankings broadly align with the status quo in Australia in terms of the key players in the industry – both EV and legacy brands – and their commitments and targets for EVs.  

See our detailed list on ‘Which car brands are going all-electric – and when’, which was bolstered recently by Volvo Australia’s commitment to going all-EV by 2026.

The ‘race to zero’ rankings were released this week to coincide with the UN Climate Change Conference COP27 in Egypt, where the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said the world was on a “highway to climate hell”.

In an interview on ABC TV, the Climate Council’s head of advocacy, Dr Jennifer Rayner, warned that Australia is in danger of becoming a dumping ground for combustion engine vehicles.

“Australians don’t have a lot of choice for the types of vehicles they buy because manufacturers are not bringing the much cheaper, much more fuel-efficient vehicles here that they’re selling in other markets,” she said.

“That’s because we don’t have the fuel efficiency standards that would incentivise them to bring them here.

“But what our ranking today shows is that a lot of the market is already moving in the direction of selling solely zero-emission vehicles and so some manufacturers think they could do it.

“Then we’d call on all manufacturers to get in the race and try and catch up.”

In August, federal minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, insisted that new fuel efficiency standards are on the agenda, but stopped short of making a firm commitment.

“What we’re saying is now is the time to have a serious discussion about whether Australia should have fuel efficiency standards and how we should have them,” he said.

Electric car sales are rising but still only account for only a small fraction of new vehicle sales in Australia (2.6 per cent), but Dr Rayner argues that the brands who are “dragging their heels” on EVs shouldn’t be setting the agenda in Canberra.

“The manufacturers who are lagging behind and refusing to embrace an all-electric future are making the conscious choice to remain in the polluting past and risk being lapped by the competition,” she said.

“These heel-draggers shouldn’t be setting the pace for our national transport policies.”

Dr Rayner also pointed to EV affordability as a major issue that needs to be resolved.

“The cheapest EV that’s available in Australia costs around $50,000, whereas the average Australian new car that people are buying is about $22,000,” she said.

“There’s still a big gap for most people between the car that they would buy or be able to afford to buy and the EVs that are on the market.”

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