Dear rich people – hurry up and buy EVs so when they make my Corolla illegal I can afford your hand-me-downs

I'm gonna be stuck filling my 25 year old car with petrol for some time, can you #RaiseTheRate so I can drive more? https://t.co/KFSWWt1l8m

— 💜 phonakins 🇵🇸🍉 (@phonakins) February 4, 2024

Let’s talk overdue but good policies. Australia desperately need better fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. SO, it’s great that Labor are introducing some. I don’t buy it as a cost of living measure though. It is however one of the trickle down things that I need the rich (people able to justify buying a new car) to get on. They need to be buying those efficient cars now, so that in 5 years I may be able to upgrade to their old car, circumstances willing. I mean it’s unlikely, I’m likely to be driving this Corolla til it is horribly killed or legislated off the road, in which case I need y’all to get onto EVs so that when Australia does ban petrol cars  in 10-20 years there will be some available to us.

I was fortunate to be able to get this more fuel efficient (ie smaller) care last year before the move as we had some inheritance money to play with which meant buying a car before selling the old one. The little beast is not gonna break any records, but it gets us around. What does a new car go for these days? Whatever it is, I have to drive it a lot for the supposed $1k savings at the petrol pump, and like many in my twitter comments say, that’s not gonna happen, and the only way they’ve been saving at the pump is keeping their cars off the road because they can’t afford to fill let alone maintain and keep registered, their ageing source of independence.

Unfortunately, the joy of selling the AU to a chap down the road who bought it because his mate had just bought one too (are those your skid marks down Cooranbong way mate?) is short lived since that means we not have to fix up the rust and the transmission and other things in the Concorde. So while it’s off the road til at least the transmission is done later this month, Bruce has the Corolla for work and I’m saving money but not getting as much done as I’d like by being home more and taking the train when I do head out. Friday was a long morning, catching the train and bus into group and not being able to do the usual foodbank and Ozharvest run for myself and my sister. This girl likes her routine and being able to help out.

So, again, I may seem like I poo-poo on everything that gets suggested as a reform, but I’m just pointing out how it affects my little demographic, whatever that is. And that while it’s great to make progress, you can’t sell it to us who can’t afford to partake in it with the promise that the new car you get to buy will save you $1000 a year.

Speaking of progress, there was a rally on the weekend in Newcastle in support of the offshore wind projects, and I was glad to see my local independent there along with Greens and Labor representatives. I live in sight of the largest coal power station in the country, and everyone has some connection to coal jobs. But we need to move forward. Both for our long term ability to slow the global heating and irregular weather systems but also, like the promise of the fuel efficient and EV cars being cleaner for the street they run on, for the health of our lungs.

The Singleton Argus on Twitter regularly reports on how many days they have PM10 above healthy levels to to the coal, and also the 2.5 with bushfires. We’ve woken up today here with sore throats from bushfire smoke from Karuah even though the house was closed up all night. Powering EVs with renewables would be an amazing way to live, and I love that we’re taking steps towards that, but the trickle down effect won’t be seen for some time. Til then I acknowledge my priveledge in even being able to keep a car on the road.