In terms of global awareness, Australians are very conscientious when it comes to the environment.
With some of the most unique flora and fauna in the southern hemisphere, Australia is a country proud to lead the way in conservation.
With hybrid cars being available on the market for the best part of a decade now, the sales of hybrid cars are finally starting to see an increase.
The Toyota Camry Hybrid is probably the most well-known hybrid car on the Australian market, but there are now alternatives to hybrids that are also beneficial to our environment and our wallets. Cars like the German designed Smart car as well as new forms of plug-in electric cars are filtering onto the market which means Australians are taking more of an interest in conserving our environment by limiting their carbon emission from their vehicles.
As well as the obvious environmental benefits, there are also financial advantages of driving a hybrid car including savings such as the reduced amount of fuel required for it to operate. Despite all of these factors hybrids still only account for slightly less than two percent of the total global new passenger vehicle market. Encouragingly though, Australian hybrid sales have seen enormous increases in recent years. In 2010, a total of 8453 hybrids cars were sold to Australian motorists which equates to 1.11 percent of the 759,546 new cars sold on the passenger vehicle market. This is a massive growth when compared to the first 11 months of 2009 whereby just 3891 were sold across Australia. Not dissimilar to Australia’s newly announced carbon tax, Japan has even taken the measure of implementing considerable tax benefits for those who buy hybrid cars in a bid to encourage motorists to purchase green energy vehicles.
Toyota is dedicated to hybrid powered vehicles by committing to produce 1 million Camry Hybrids in 2011. This would see an enormous increase in their production rates, basically doubling production numbers from their 2009 range. Showing solidarity to the hybrid campaign, Australia became home to Toyota’s fifth hybrid facility in the world with the Hybrid Camry production line opening in Melbourne.
The phenomenon of petrol-electric cars is slowly but surely gathering wind around the globe, and with sales steadily growing in Australia it won’t be long until we see a complete transformation to hybrid or electric cars to pursue our goals of a cleaner, greener sustainable future.
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