The growing U.S. full-size truck imports coming to Australia have caused a big stir in the country’s government and criticism from the public.
“If you buy one, you’re an idiot,” said Samantha Ratnam on Instagram, Leader of the Victorian Greens and Member for the Northern Metropolitan Region as quoted by Carsguide.com/Australia.
She went on to add:
“If we want to lower our transport emissions and reduce road fatalities, we need to see less of these monster cars on our streets.
It’s an undeniable fact that super-sized vehicles are dangerous. They have blind spots up to four meters in front of the vehicle.
And it is no coincidence that a child is eight times more likely to die being hit by a larger utility vehicle when compared to a lighter car. Not to mention the astonishing amount of pollution caused by these beasts.”
What U.S. full-size truck imports are going to Australia?
A short recap would be in the last few years, Ram, Ford, GM and Toyota have all started looking or are actively importing full-size and heavy-duty trucks into Australia. These automakers had done imports in the past, but now the number of imports has grown substantially.
It had been a niche vehicle for that market mainly driven for camping in the Australian Outback, boat towing and construction. This is because the small utes the Australians had been using — like the Toyota Hilux or global versions of the Ranger and Colorado — didn’t have the payload or towing capability to haul these items as well as the larger trucks.
Ram started things off by importing the 1500 through a long-standing local importer Ateco Group since 2013. These trucks would be imported to their factory to be retrofitted to be right-hand drive and in limited trim level options. This is a costly procedure, requiring approximately 100 hours of labor. This makes the starting price of a Ram 1500 Laramie, double cab with the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 to $114,940 Australian dollars ($76,690 USD) before other “on road” costs according to Alteco Group.
There will be a Limited and Limited Launch Edition priced at $139,950 ($93,369 USD).
The new Hurricane lineup of engines will eventually replace the Hemi V-8 according to Cars Guide Australia.
The Altec Group celebrated 2,000 conversions on February 3, 2023. They previously celebrated 500 conversions on January 15, 2020. (Photo courtesy Altec Group)
Ram has also been importing Ram 2500 and Ram 3500 trucks through a joint venture with Walkinshaw Automotive Group for even more towing and payload capacity.
This month Ram revealed it has passed 30,000 sales of these trucks in Australia since starting back in 2013. This sales number, while small for the U.S. market, hasn’t gone unnoticed according to Carsguide.com/au.
Holden Special Vehicles, a partnership between General Motors Holden and the British Tom Walkinshaw Racing group, started importing the Chevy Silverado 2500 HD with the 6.6-liter Duramax diesel engine. Then it started bringing in the Chevy Silverado 1500 with the 6.2-liter V-8 engine as well.
The Silverado 1500 LTZ Premium is now $130,500 Australian dollars ($87,064 USD) before additional costs which is a $2,500 increase year-over-year according to the Cars Guide Australia
Ram has sold 1,637 trucks so far year-to-date, while Chevy has sold 1,519 sales.
Ford also joined the fray, announcing in early 2022 that it would be bringing the F-150 with the 3.5-liter V-6 EcoBoost engine to Australia through RMA Automotive Australia in Melbourne. Sales commenced late last year with prices ranging from $100,320 to $151,910 ($66,929 – $101,328 USD) for XLT or Lariat in either a short or long wheelbase.
Finally, Toyota announced it would bring the Tundra Limited with the 3.4-liter twin-turbocharged hybrid engine to Australia. It had 280 customers conduct a local evaluation and Cars Guide Australia suspects they will go on sale later this year. The Walkinshaw Group signed on to do the factory-approved conversion work.
The 2024 Toyota Tundra Limited is converted for right-hand drive in Australia. (Photo courtesy Cars Guide Australia)
Fierce criticism
These full-size truck imports are causing a lot of conversation among the Australian government and consumers as found in the comment section.
Many point to their increased pollution, problems parking them in cities designed for the small utes, and general hatred towards seeing them unloaded and not doing work everyday.
Andrew Chesterton, contributing journalist for Cars Guide Australia, summed up the issue in a column with this headline: “Do you drive a Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Toyota Tundra or Chevrolet Silverado in Australia? Sorry, but it turns out everyone dislikes you.”
Chesterton states he rather likes them after spending time with them. And admits it seems he is on an island with the commenters attacking these trucks.
The comments section is rife with back and forth over them.
Beau Johnson said:
“These vehicles, while they have a place, towing, are not meant to be 60% of traffic. The rest of the world outside of the US and Oz is doing its best to reduce GHG’s but the footy-brained Aussie and the muscle headed Yank insist on driving these behemoths and complaining about fuel prices.
IMHO, they have a niche place in the car market – heavy towing. If you don’t need that, you don’t need one of these oversized Yank Tanks that put everyone else in danger on the road.”
T&N Escapes said:
“I have both a Ram 1500 and a Kia EV6, they both have their purposes and wouldn’t have anything else, the Ram does its job brilliantly and I wouldn’t trade it for a smaller under power ute any day, once you have 1 you will never go back to the others, and the EV is amazing at what it does ‘the run around,’ but if you can’t charge it at home off of solar then frankly they arnt worth it, buy a hybrid instead for the money.”
Which Rusell Jay responded:
“Unfortunately you seem to be the exception. Just about every time I go to Woolworths there is a ram or similar taking up 2-4 spots or sticking out so far from their spot that it makes the car park problematic for others to navigate.
I have no problem with large utes when used for their intended roles as you seem to.”
Finally, Yarra City Council councillor Stephen Jolly has some sharp criticism of them as well.
“If you live in Fitzroy with the tiny streets that exist and you buy yourself a Hummer, you’re an absolute idiot and you need to be dealt with, with whatever way that council can deal with it,” Jolly said as quoted by Cars Guide Australia.
The city council is studying higher parking fees as a way to deter people driving bigger vehicles.
The bottom line
This criticism has long been part of the American culture that has pushed back at the growing size of full-size trucks.
The thing that is often left out of the conversation is all the new safety features like back-up cameras, pedestrian detection, myriad parking sensors and blind-spot monitoring. People see the size and immediately jump to conclusions.
Finally, watching the video review from Chesterton on the Toyota Tundra Limited, it is clear he thinks people are going to ultimately like them in Australia.
“I think Toyota’s biggest problem with the Tundra is going to be building them fast enough.”
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