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Fuel Consumption in Australia

Fuel Consumption in Australia

I wrote last week about the recent surge in interest around Electric Vehicles, and how some of our brands like Hyundai already have Electric vehicles on the road in Australia. There's a lot to learn about the different types of propulsion systems headed our way, from Hybrid to Fuel Cell and pure EV which I'll attempt to shed some light on over the next few weeks. However it's worth noting that even today there are traditional engine vehicles on the road that currently obtain excellent fuel economy and emission results. If emission reductions are a meritorious goal however, there is something the Government can do almost immediately, and that is to mandate a better quality of fuel for our consumption. Did you know for example that our fuel quality is generally regarded as some of the worst globally? Take for example the current Sulphur content standard for our Petrol. Australia's minimum sits at 150ppm compared to Europe's at 1 Oppm. Accepting such a poor standard of fuel does a few things, notably a lower efficiency and higher emissions scenario. It also restricts the ability of car manufacturers to bring in highly advanced engines which wont tolerate such poor fuel. If we truly want to enhance vehicles efficiencies and emissions in the near future it seems to me one of the first steps would be to work on getting better fuel standards.