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Articles by Laura Berry

Laura Berry
Senior Journalist

Laura Berry is a best-selling Australian author and journalist who has been reviewing cars for almost 20 years. 

Much more of a Hot Wheels girl than a Matchbox one, she grew up in a family that would spend every Friday night sitting on a hill at the Speedway watching Sprintcars slide in the mud. The best part of this was being given money to buy stickers. She loved stickers… which then turned into a love of tattoos.

Out of boredom, she learnt to drive at 14 on her parents’ bush property in what can only be described as a heavily modified Toyota LandCruiser.  

At the age of 17 she was told she couldn’t have a V8 Holden ute by her mother, which led to Laura and her father laying in the driveway for three months building a six-cylinder ute with more horsepower than a V8.  

Since then she’s only ever owned V8s, with a Ford Falcon XW and a Holden Monaro CV8 part of her collection over the years. 

Laura has authored two books and worked as a journalist writing about science, cars, music, TV, cars, art, food, cars, finance, architecture, theatre, cars, film and cars. But, mainly cars.  

A wife and parent, her current daily driver is a chopped 1951 Ford Tudor with a V8.

Toughened up hybrid family SUV revealed? New 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness leaks online ahead of Australian release of Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX-5, Mitsubishi Outlander and Nissan X-Trail rival
By Laura Berry · 21 Jan 2025
The new Subaru Forester equipped with the tough-looking Wilderness pack was revealed in a video online, sending fans of the brand into a frenzy.
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'The number one undisputed off-road brand': Ford boss announces new direction, to overtake Toyota, Nissan, Jeep and others to become the 'Porsche' of off-roading: Report
By Laura Berry · 20 Jan 2025
If you’ve ever wondered what Ford wants to be then you’ll be happy to know the company’s global CEO and president Jim Farley has just told us — it’s Porsche.
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Used electric car prices in free fall : Exclusive report shows buyer's market as second hand Tesla Model 3, Tesla Model Y, BYD Atto 3 and MG ZS EV prices dive | Analysis
By Laura Berry · 19 Jan 2025
CarsGuide’s analytics team has unearthed exclusive data sourced from Gumtree, CarsGuide and Autotrader listings, which shows the second-hand electric vehicle market is primed for buyers with prices dropping significantly over two years.There’s a lot of talk about how cheap new electric cars are getting, and sure the prices are coming down, the BYD Dolphin Essential is the cheapest in Australia at $29,990 (before on-road costs). New electric cars are still on the pricey side, though, and you won’t find many new EVs under the $50,000 mark. Tesla is the most popular electric car brand in Australia, but entry into a new Model Y SUV costs $55,900 and a Model 3 starts at $54,900.  Hyundai’s Kona Electric Kona lists for $54,000 at its most affordable, the Zeekr X is $56,900 for the base car, while the cheapest Volvo EX30 is $59,990.But what about a second-hand Tesla or any used EV? And are there more used EVs available these days?We put the question to our analytics team: has the number of listings and the median price changed over the course of the past two years? We asked the team to concentrate on seven models: the BYD Atto 3, Hyundai Kona Electric, MG ZS EV, Nissan Leaf, and the Teslas — Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X.Those particular models were chosen not just for their popularity but also being established here for longer. The Nissan Leaf hatch has been on sale in Australia for 10 years, the Tesla Model S sedan first arrived in 2017 as did the Model X large SUV, while the Model 3 appeared in 2019 and went on to become not just the most popular EV, but one of the most bought cars in Australia. Hyundai’s Kona’s Electric small SUV quietly slipped into Australia in 2019, too. MG’s ZS EV SUV 2020 arrival signalled the start of the Chinese electric wave we’re currently riding. Tesla’s highly anticipated Model Y mid-sized SUV stole the EV show in 2022, followed by the BYD Atto 3 in 2023.The data revealed that the Tesla Model 3 is the most listed used electric car with a total of 7795 live listings over a reporting period starting on January 1 2023 and ending December 1, 2024. The Nissan Leaf is the second most listed used EV with a total of 5633 listed during those 24 months. Third place for listings was the MG ZS EV with 5352. The Hyundai Kona Electric was next with 3045, while there were 1937 listings for the Tesla Model Y.The number of live used listings increased for the Atto 3, Kona Electric, MG ZS EV, but stayed static for the Teslas. We could speculate that used Tesla Model 3s and Ys generally sell faster and therefore don’t accumulate to the degree the others, but further data analysis is needed.  Overall the number of used EVs listed fell from 1148 live listings on January 1 2023 to 746 in December 1, 2024, but during this time live listings rose and peaked at 1643 on March 1, 2024. That made the 12 months from January 2023 to January 2024 a time when the largest number of used EVs were consistently listed before falling to current levels of about 800 total live listings month in and out.The big takeaway is not just how many cars were listed but that the median listing price decreased for all models for the 24 months.The median listing price for the Tesla Model 3 in January 2023 was $65,990, but by December 2024 it was $46,705. Likewise for the Model Y the median listing price in January 2023 was $79,950 and by December 2024 it was $53,987.The BYD Atto 3 despite only being on the market since 2023 saw its median used car price fall dramatically, too, from $51,500 to $36,990 over the two-year reporting period. The MG ZS EV wasn’t immune to the median listing price fall either, starting at $48,071 in January 2023 and ending at $34,300 in December 2024. The most affordable used EV was the oldest — the Nissan Leaf — with a median price of $33,990 that fell to $22,990 over the two years.Only the Kona Electric, which started at $29,800, saw prices fall then increase to $37,300 off the back of the second generation model arriving in January 2024, then fall again to $34,490 by the end of that year.As for the Tesla Model S and X, both also started with higher median listing prices and fell over the 24 months. Both are older models and now available to buy new. Still, if you’re into this kind of thing the data is fascinating with the median listing price of the Model X being $129,990 and dropping to $75,800 after the two years. A bargain considering the Model X listed for $272K when it debuted here in 2017. But would you want an electric car that’s almost a decade old? Well, that’s another story and not the point of this report. Here we just wanted to present the real data from our own analytics team to help give you a better insight into both buying a second hand EV and maybe even help you manage your expectations when selling an EV.     
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Porsche wants petrol Macan back, said insiders as bosses change their mind about electric Macan: Report
By Laura Berry · 17 Jan 2025
Porsche appears to be reconsidering axing combustion engines from its Macan mid-sized SUV line-up, amid a slump in demand for electric vehicles and falling global sales.
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Has Leapmotor's boss come up with the perfect EV solution for Australia with the 1000km C10 REEV that could leave other electric cars like Tesla's Model Y stranded?? 
By Laura Berry · 16 Jan 2025
First it was hybrids that were going to replace combustion engine cars, then electric vehicles, and now we’re back to hybrids again it seems.
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Wait - how much torque? 2026 RAM 2500 and 3500 announced with more tech and collossal torque to take on Chevrolet Silverado and Toyota Tundra
By Laura Berry · 13 Jan 2025
RAM’s 2500 and 3500 Heavy Duty full-sized pick up trucks have been given an update, bringing more safety features, better in-car tech and an overhauled powerplant that now produces almost 1500Nm.
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Mazda CX-70 2025 review: GT D50e long-term | Part 1
By Laura Berry · 12 Jan 2025
The Kia Carnival was always going to be a hard act to follow for the Mazda CX-70 GT D50e - for a start the name is not very catchy. But this new long-term test car is already impressing the Berry family.
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Zeekr X 2025 review: AWD
By Laura Berry · 06 Jan 2025
You might be feeling overwhelmed by all the new electric brands coming into Australia right now, but if there's one you should take note of it's Zeekr and its X small electric SUV - it impressed us.
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The car world's new names and words for 2024: Is you car software defined and V2G capable? Do you know your Xpeng from your Xiaomi?
By Laura Berry · 24 Dec 2024
Just what is a “software-defined vehicle”? Why did we start calling electricity “new energy”? And who or what are Xiaomi and Zeekr? A lot of new buzz words and terms have appeared in the car world in 2024 and it’s had all of us scrambling to keep on top of the new lingo. So, that had us thinking: what have been the standout new entries into the car vocabulary in the year that was? Here’s a quick r
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Laura Berry's Top 5 cars of 2024: From Audi TT to Kia Carnival 
By Laura Berry · 22 Dec 2024
Cars are like people. Meet enough cars and you can pick an outstanding one pretty quickly.When it comes to outstanding cars they don’t have to do everything right, but what’s important is that they do the things they’re intended for almost perfectly. The same probably goes for people, too.Anyway, here's my top five of 2024 here. Cars, that is, not people - but I can give you that list, too, if you want.
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