The " Hybrid " decision !

Kevin Rudd has decreed that Australians will drive petrol/electric hybrid cars - and has given Toyota $ 35 million to build 10,000 of them at it's plant in Melbourne. He hopes that Ford and Holden will take the hint - and to encourage the hybrid market share the giant Commonwealth car fleet - and many state car fleets - will make the change.

It is a marginal improvement on the present situation - but Toyota has since announced that it intended to build hybrid cars in Australia anyway - hence that gift of $ 35 million was probably unnecessary.

The down side of this decision is that Australia will still be stuck with a car that uses petrol - although less of it ! As a result, the ordinary Australian family will still be hostage to both OPEC and the oil companies as far as the price charged at the petrol pump.

There is another down side which nobody seems keen to talk about. The hybrid is all whiz bang marvellously new - except nobody wants to have one as a second hand car. The problem is that hybrids have a very expensive battery pack - which needs renewal about every five years. The cost of that renewal is about the same as a major engine overhaul for a conventional petrol car.

With a conventional car, engine wear equates to the distance covered. With a hybrid battery life is measured in time, irrespective of the distance covered. As a result, buyers become nervous when any battery pack is approaching it's third year of life.

Kevin Rudd could have taken a different direction with his plan to " green " Australian motoring. He could have decided that the Australian car fleet will be in future powered by natural gas - totally eliminating it's need for petrol and freeing us from the clutches of OPEC by replacing oil with the gas reserves which we have in abundance.

Had Rudd decreed that all new cars sold in this country be powered by natural gas the mechanics of change would be far simpler for manufacturers - and one car - the Ford Falcon - is already produced in this mode.

That $ 35 million would have been better spent subsidizing the conversion of existing cars under five years old to natural gas - and attrition would have taken care of older vehicles not worth the cost of conversion.

There would have been one other absolute necessity. Rudd would have needed to ensure that auto gas remained outside the orbit of the oil companies, otherwise they would hike the prices to parity with petrol and sabotage Australian reliance on an abundant natural product.

Unfortunately Rudd made a contrary decision and it looks like we will be stuck with hybrids, for better or worse. The pity of it is that a great opportunity to free this country from a dwindling world commodity has been lost !