Australia's Quest for Green Cars

Talk has been rife about Australia's car industry's need to produce green cars to combat the spectre of global warming and potentially disastrous climate change. Although it can be argued that Australia's contribution to the global emissions scheme of things is relatively miniscule, and greenhouse gases coming from cars is far outweighed that coming from farming and bush burn-offs, many people believe that Australia should take the lead in developing the next wave in car technology, one that promises ever-decreasing carbon output and increasingly powered by non-traditional sources: plants, wind, sun and water currents.


Building green cars in Australia is one of the current government's more contentious policies, drawing flak and support from often members of the same group. On one hand, many argue that government funding to support car-making research is essential to keeping the high-tech industry alive in Australia, and bring the already-mentioned cars to millions of homes and parking lots.

Others contend that the billions of dollars earmarked for industry support for the next decade or so should be coming from these automobile companies' own funds, given that more consumers are demanding green-certified cars for themselves. At worst, opposers to the green car plan say that it is a taxpayers' subsidy to companies who should be making investments at their customer's behest.

It remains to be seen how the Australian car industry will play out its cards, given the difficult market conditions it has been enduring lately. Quite possibly, releasing a new hit green car on the Aussie market will score a company brownie points for corporate concern and will be partly marketed for its environmentally-correct virtues.

However, Aussie car owners have been known to overwhelmingly prefer driving utes, gas-guzzling four-wheel drives, and even power vehicles like the road train. Add to that the presence of internal combustion engines in sand rails, jet boats and planes and it can be seen how nothing less is needed than a complete overhaul of how cars and other vehicles are powered, and where car fuel comes from.

Even in the worst of times for the domestic car industry, it is probable that the only way to revitalise everyone's interest in the future is to roll out new green car technologies, or move green car concepts from the engineering room to the factory floor, and soon!