Opinion: Cleaner ICE vehicles could be better for the environment than electric

The small car in Australia is a category of vehicle that, if it were an animal, would be subject to some sort of UN breeding program with news coverage every time a freshly manufactured example was released from a showroom into the wild. But it shouldn’t be so.

Recently I drove a long-time jewel in the small-car crown – a new-generation Suzuki Swift. A rival to this month’s Wheels cover car, the MG 3, this Swift is not a facelift, it’s an entirely new vehicle – and when there’s a new generation of a small car, balloons should be falling from ceilings. Damn near public holidays should be declared.

It wasn’t that long ago that small cars were ferociously mauling the ankles of bigger vehicles in the Aussie sales race. Fifteen years ago, in 2009, the Light car segment comprised 12.4 percent of all new cars sold in Australia. The Hyundai Getz and Toyota Yaris fought over the number-one spot like two terriers in a tug-of-war, as the little Mazda 2, Holden Barina and others nipped and snarled from the sidelines.

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No fewer than 25 models vied for what was a hotly contested, thriving market segment.

It’s a very different story today – the Light segment making up just 2.9 percent of the new car market in 2023 as buyers are upsold into small SUVs instead. The old $18,990 drive-away MG 3 (Australia’s favourite small car) has proven an appetite remains for cheap small cars, but for the most part it’s been a bloodbath of discontinued models, including Mitsubishi Mirage, Ford Fiesta, Honda Jazz, Renault Clio, Nissan Micra, Peugeot 208 and Hyundai i20.

It’s a pity because cars like these probably make more sense than ever. We are, of course, facing a crisis of climate – one that’s changing the face of the automotive industry. Those in power are sensibly taking heed of scientists’ furious arm waving and barely muted screaming, and implementing rules to reduce fuel consumption of brand new cars (heard of NVES?).

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New vehicles in Australia, in this day and age, are largely light commercials masquerading as family transport or oversized SUVs hulking along on raised ride heights with all-wheel-drive systems they don’t strictly need.

Worse still, they are vehicles built to carry four, five or seven, and instead, the vast majority of time can be seen carrying one.

If we had to imagine a type of vehicle to expedite the reduction of fossil fuel it might not be an EV pretending to be an off-roader. It might be more appropriately sized given its regular occupancy of just one, or one and a few kids.

A small car, basically.

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Driving the new Suzuki Swift Hybrid this month was like catching up with a wily, witty old mate. Just as it did when launched in 1984, the new Swift shows the value of a simply smaller, lighter car.

It’s a ‘mild hybrid’, which is a cynical term, as it uses a smaller battery with an integrated starter-generator, but god forbid it was a real, dinky-di hybrid like that of a Toyota or a Hyundai because it might actually start generating petrol out of nothing.

Real world fuel economy around 4.0L/100km – at worst, 5.0L/100km – bespeaks the value of not just mild electrification but also lightness and smaller frontal areas.

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Think of the carbon dioxide that could be saved across the new-car world if everybody was simply forced into smaller cars instead of electric ones.

Lightness also grants the little Swift a lovely ride-and-handling balance – the car feeling delightfully quick-stepping on its feet as well as granting plenty of lane to drive within owing to its petite width. It’s easy to park, tackles speed bumps with aplomb, and I’d put money on it tackling a dirt road as well as any small SUV.

It’s a pity so few will be seen in the wild, then. But whatever program might be needed to increase its numbers and those of its small car kin, I will get behind.