Cash for Clunkers: Suzuki comments

It's the government scheme that benefits Toyota solely among local manufacturers and has been roundly pilloried by the Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association (AAAA).

The Labor government's Cleaner Car Rebate was announced in the dying days of its campaign for re-election and has not proved the vote-winner it was expected to be.

Although the government supplied two examples to illustrate how owners of pre-1995 vehicles could upgrade to a new car as a consequence of the rebate scheme, which is known informally as 'cash for clunkers', the AAAA pointed out that in reality, very few owners of such older cars could take advantage of the scheme. And the AAAA's views are shared by the General Manager of Suzuki Australia, Tony Devers.

Devers heads up a company that stands to reap benefits by supporting the policy. Starting with the parsimonious Alto (pictured), the company's entire passenger-car range -- other than the Kizashi Sport, which is not yet rated by the Green Vehicle Guide -- scores a greenhouse rating of '6' or better and meets the eligibility standard for the rebate. Yet Devers broadly agrees with many of the points made by the AAAA. 

"Cash for Clunkers -- $2000 -- it's just not going to work," he told the Carsales Network following the New Zealand launch of the Kizashi Sport yesterday. "But I'd love to get some of those cars off the road..."

"Where's the benefit to drive an i20 [Hyundai] or an Alto -- 4.7L/100km, 98 grams of CO2 or something like that? If they're fair dinkum about the environment and fuel efficiency, they'd be doing something to support the purchase of those cars."

In essence, a well-kept, pre-1995 car could be sold privately for about the same sum as the government is offering as a rebate to trash the car completely. The cars that aren't well kept and should be taken off the roads won't be, because the owners of those cars can't afford new cars to replace them.

The Carsales Network put it to Devers that the scheme might be viable if the powers-that-be could micro-manage the scheme and offer eligible participants the opportunity to upgrade to a car that's more fuel efficient and younger, but not necessarily new.

"Agreed, that's a step-by-step process," replied Devers, who takes the view that any initiative to remove older cars from the road is misguided if it isn't driven by the need to reduce the road toll also.

"I fervently look at modern cars [as] a lot safer as well. How many lives do you save with six airbags and ESC -- and how much saving is that to the community? We all know that road injuries and death [represent] a huge cost. You start rolling that aspect out as well...

"Some of those cars out there... In Victoria you don't have to have a roadworthy unless you sell it. These are 15, 20 years old and have never had a roadworthy."

Under the scheme, the number of cars to be scrapped will be capped at 200,000 -- but the jury's out as to whether the program will ever yield anything like that sort of number.

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