For years The Holden Commodore has been the most popular fleet car for Australian businesses. Phil Dobbie talks to David Brown to see if this is changing with increased competition and rising fuel prices. Is fuel efficiency now the number one factor when considering a new vehicle? And, if you’re the boss, what car should you be seen in?
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- Today’s Transcription
Dobbie: Good day I’m Phil Dobbie. Today on BTalk Australia, which car for you and your business — as fuel prices rise, is now a good time to evaluate what you’re buying? All of the sudden fuel efficiency is becoming a big concern. If you run a fleet of vehicles for your sales staff how much could you be saving? And if you’re the boss what’s the wrong car doing for your image? To help us sort our right from wrong I’m joined by David Brown from Motoring Consultancy Firm Driven Media. David, what is the most popular fleet car or company car on the road in Australia? I imagine it’s the Ford Falcon or the Commodore … is it?
Brown: Commodore is still up there amongst them, and to some degree so is the Falcon. but there have been trends towards having other cars — things like the Aurian from Toyota — if you still want a big car. Then down to things like the Camry, which is a medium-sized car, principally because its got a four-cylinder engine. But there has been pressure on for two reasons: one the operating costs (including the cost of petrol) and the other is, of course, resale value.
Dobbie: Yes, so let’s talk about the operating costs in relation to fuel, first of all. With the Commodore, or these big six-cylinder cars — how much would you save in fuel if you stepped down from six cylinders to a four-cylinder car?
Brown: Well the issue you’ve gotta realise is that the price of petrol over the first five years of your car — working on average figures — is about a quarter of the cost.
Dobbie: Right.
Brown: So, the amount that you could save is — if we’re talking about moving from a Commodore, which is about 10.8 liters per 100km, down to something like a Corolla-sized vehicle which is nearer eight liters per 100km — you’re talking about a 20 percent savings on your fuel. So, while that’s only about a quarter of your cost, it’s giving you some idea. They’re pretty ballpark figures but they give you an idea of what sort of savings you can get. The other issue is what will the Corolla be worth?
Dobbie: So what you’re saying is that engine size isn’t a be all and end all. It’s important, but there’s other factors to consider. And I guess a lot of people thought for fleet vehicles they need vehicles that have fairly good performance and also reasonable size. You’ve gotta be able to chuck a whole lot of stuff in the back, you know, sales samples, the secretary, you know, whatever else you’re taking off on your business trip.
Brown: Look it depends on what you’ve really got. And buying any car, be it private or business, it’s a case of sitting down and figuring out what you really need. Now, one of the things about smaller cars that have come onto the market recently is they show an extremely clever use of the space inside. So, while, in the past, going to a smaller size car might have meant compromising significantly your inner space in the vehicle, it’s not necessarily quite that clear-cut any more. A Toyota Corolla is about the same size as an LDH Holden, which of course was the family car way back in the ’60s. And you find that its dimensions are very similar, its horsepower is probably greater, and its use of space inside is particularly good. So you’ve got to work out what it is you need. If it’s a station wagon or a hatchback — to be able to put things in the back — looking at one of the things you can do with modern cars, the incredible functionality coming into cars, now you can fold down the rear seats and fold them flat in some instances and allow yourself an enormous amount of space.
Dobbie: It just seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Station wagons haven’t really caught on so much as a car for reps on the road, have they? Even though it would be an obvious use of space for them. But do we still have this fear of using station wagons in this country because we imagine station wagons are going to have curtains in the back, a surfboard on the roof, and a slab of beer on the passenger’s seat?
Brown: We’re actually moving away from the bleak station wagons. The new Commodore, for example, is a station wagon which is built on the same wheel base. It’s not built on a longer wheel base. And the word that’s really coming out that’s associated with station wagons now is “sports wagons”.
Dobbie: Right.
Brown: It’s not so much to be able to sleep in the back like in the ’60s and ’70s, but more to have the functionality of the station wagon. I think the idea of using one to drive around the suburbs — that sort of had its heritage — is from the suburbs of America. The sports wagon is very much the thing that’s coming to the floor — if you are in business and you are going around in a vehicle like that it doesn’t necessarily have to look boring.
Dobbie: Right.
Brown: They have moved out of wagons — for example, the Camry wagon is no longer being made for Australia. So, we have moved away from it a little. But then again the Camry wagon always looked like the sort of vehicle you had to have rather than the vehicle you wanted to have.
Dobbie: On fuel efficiency, Holden are launching a new Commodore range with what they’re calling “cylinder deactivation”. So, you can run a V8 on four cylinders. How does that work? Is it like a magic button you press and all the sudden you lose all the power in your car?
Brown: Purely automatic — the Honda Accord has come out with the same sort of thing. If the engine in the car senses that you’re not using the engine to anywhere near its full power — for example if you’re tooling along a freeway or a highway not accelerating greatly then it says, “Well, you can do that with fewer cylinders than you normally need”. And so it just makes the decision and drops down the number of cylinders and fires the cylinders less frequently. It uses all of them but not as frequently as it would normally do on full power. But as soon as you need the acceleration, as soon as you put your foot on the accelerator, the car is quick enough to respond. They have electronics in vehicles now that sense what the car is doing and adapt to the basic conditions of that car. And now, that is not only being applied to power but to economy.
Dobbie: So is this going to be a good boost to the Commodore, do you think?
Brown: The Commodore has to do something from an image point of view. They’re desperately in need of coming up with something like a diesel engine, really. General Motors has been behind the eight ball in terms of diesel engines they tend to be dominated by the American market, which up until now hasn’t particularly wanted to have a diesel engine. So, I think it will help the Commodore to be seen to be doing something. Particularly if you’re a rep traveling in the country it would be a particularly good avenue to take.
Dobbie: Although if the reps have the ability to choose this car, I mean, I wonder whether fuel efficiency is top-of-mind for reps on the road? They’re not paying the petrol so it’s less of a concern for them.
Brown: Yes, well, everyone’s only going to do it if they’re accountable for it. If it’s not going to be reflected in that then they would choose the most comfortable or the biggest car in most cases. Although I suppose a smaller car tends to be easier to park and, you know, it’s a little bit more functional that way. So, it’s always horses for courses. I should say that if you are looking for a particularly fuel efficient car, if you do want to do some comparison, there’s a website called Green Fleet which lists all the cars there and allows a comparison to be made. So that gives you some idea of what it’s going to cost.
Dobbie: Alright. What about hybrid cars? They’ve been making the news a lot lately. Kevin Rudd and John Grumby have kindly offered $70 million to Toyota to build the hybrid version of the Camry here in Australia. But are we going to see hybrids suitable for heavy duty, driven-all-day sorts of company cars?
Brown: Oh yeah, I think they can do them. Let’s put it into context, though: hybrids are more symbolic at the moment. Half of one percent of all sales in the market are hybrids. If the Camry gets up and sells its 10,000 vehicles without compromising any of the other hybrids, then we’ll get up to one and a half percent.
Dobbie: Oh that’s a huge increase.
Brown: Well, in percentage terms, yes it’s a huge increase. And, look, hybrids are fine. They’re using the best of both worlds: an electric engine is best for acceleration and a petrol engine is best for running preferably at a fairly constant revs along the way. So it really is the best of both worlds. Hybrids have also been made in trucks. One has been demonstrated here in Australia. The great dilemma is carrying around the large amount of batteries that they need. So the strength of the particular hybrid technology is there. After all, General Electric is working with Chrysler on a hybrid out in America. And they’re saying it’s basically a the equivalent of one of their railway locomotives because they really work on a diesel electric system.
Dobbie: Right. Speaking of diesel, I men diesel’s strangely it’s the most expensive option fuel-wise these days, yet in Europe most fleet cars are diesel. Why the big difference here?
Brown: There’s no question that in Europe diesels dominate enormously. Of all the vehicles sold in the world market 75 percent of them are diesel. So, you get an idea of just how much diesels have infiltrated, particularly in the Europe fleet market. Over there, the price of fuel is even higher — it’s very high. Our price of fuel isn’t all that high in the scheme of things worldwide. So, it’s a bigger component of your cost. And so running the efficiency of the diesel is not is not so much. One of the motoring clubs came out the other day with calculations that diesels aren’t necessarily all that much cheaper to run by the time you consider the increase price to buy them and the fact that the cost of fuel is higher. So, it’s not automatic that you do it. It just feels better that you’re getting better mile off the gallon as you drive them throughout the week.
Dobbie: But, why the big difference here? Why have they taken off so much in Europe and they haven’t in Australia?
Brown: I think the price of our fuel hasn’t been that high.
Dobbie: Yeah.
Brown: We’ve tended not to not to be that dominated by fuel same in America. America hasn’t taken on diesels as yet. It’s still running, you know, very, very large pickups and SUVs. Although, just recently, in the month of May, the 17-year run for the big Ford F150 pickup ended. For 17 years it was the most popular car in America. And it’s been beaten by the Honda Civic. So, enormous change is happening in the American market, and for the very reason I think you’ll see diesels come into America as well.
Dobbie: Now we’ve worried about cars for the workers, what about the boss’s car? Let’s use our imaginations. I’m the boss of the company you’ll have to have a very vivid imagination for that one. I want a prestige car that’s a pleasure to drive. But, I don’t wanna be seem to be screwing the environment. And, I don’t wanna appear too ostentatious either. What should I go for?
Brown: Well I suppose the Lexus hybrid is the way to do that, it gets about 700 liters per 100km, and it’s a Lexus-size vehicle. There are a number of other ones around, Audi’s talking about a good show of economy without the huge size. Even Volkswagens might be the sort of cars that give a degree of credibility without necessarily going over the top in terms of the price.
Dobbie: And Honda?
Brown: Yeah, well ,that’s right. I’m mentioning quite a few European cars, but Honda has just come out with the new Honda Accord Nero — these are cars that are priding themselves in their efficiency, as well as performance. There are no slouches in there. Cars in the last five or ten years have gone up enormously in power enormously in power. Probably the ones to avoid then if you want to look environmentally sensitive are four wheel drives.
Dobbie: Alright, thanks so much for your time, David. We’ve kept you away from your car for long enough. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you.
Brown: Alright, thanks very much, Phil.
