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Articles by Stephen Corby

Stephen Corby
Contributing Journalist

Stephen Corby stumbled into writing about cars after being knocked off the motorcycle he’d been writing about by a mob of angry and malicious kangaroos. Or that’s what he says, anyway. Back in the early 1990s, Stephen was working at The Canberra Times, writing about everything from politics to exciting Canberra night life, but for fun he wrote about motorcycles.

After crashing a bike he’d borrowed, he made up a colourful series of excuses, which got the attention of the motoring editor, who went on to encourage him to write about cars instead. The rest, as they say, is his story.

Reviewing and occasionally poo-pooing cars has taken him around the world and into such unexpected jobs as editing TopGear Australia magazine and then the very venerable Wheels magazine, albeit briefly. When that mag moved to Melbourne and Stephen refused to leave Sydney he became a freelancer, and has stayed that way ever since, which allows him to contribute, happily, to CarsGuide.

American car imports: How to import a car from the USA to Australia
By Stephen Corby · 30 Jan 2025
So you want to import an American car from the USA to Australia? Well, why wouldn’t you? American cars have long loomed large in our Aussie imaginations, to the baffling point where many, many people used to replace the Holden badges on their Commodores with Chevrolet ones, so they could pretend they had one.
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Can P-platers drive a V8?
By Stephen Corby · 24 Jan 2025
Can P-platers drive V8 cars? Literally and physically yes, and perhaps even if you have a time machine, yes, but in Australia, at this time, the answer depends on your age and where you got your provisional licence
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What is the best car for Uber in Australia?
By Stephen Corby · 16 Jan 2025
What is the best car for Uber in Australia? The obvious answer is a Toyota Camry Hybrid. That’s not just because it seems like almost every other Uber you catch is a Camry, nor even because Uber’s own research reveals that it’s the most popular model of car used by its gig economy drivers in Australia, it’s because it really is the best blend of comfort, space and economy for taxi-style work.
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Is it illegal to drive naked?
By Stephen Corby · 13 Dec 2024
Is it illegal to drive naked in Australia? In terms of specific statutes, the answer is no, it’s not defined as illegal, but perhaps that’s because driving naked - particularly in a country like Australia where seat leather can reach the kind of temperatures that could damage dangling genitalia - is so obviously a bad idea that no one bothered to codify it.In terms of indecent exposure more generally, however, not to mention general etiquette, driving naked is definitely frowned upon - and possibly more so by police than other drivers.Laws regarding driving naked in Australia do not specifically exist, although they are effectively part of catch-all statutes such as indecent exposure laws.Displaying your private parts on your private property, out of public view, is completely legal in the eyes of the law and will not land you in a prison jumpsuit to cover up your exposed organs. However, once the added element of vehicular transport enters the equation, things get messier than Argentina's God of football.Yes, your car is your private property, but roads are, by their inherent nature, a public place and one you’d be exposing yourself in if you chose to drive on them naked.Aside from the obvious question of why you would want to do this - your dog ate your clothes, you just forgot - there’s also the question of a reasonable person’s point of view.From a distance, or even sitting next to one in traffic, a naked person might simply look like they are going shirtless, at least in this country, where you are not allowed to remove the doors of your Jeep Wrangler and drive around in a naked vehicle.Still, it’s important to note that to drive naked is to risk a violation of public indecency that, depending on the state, can result in a hefty fine, jail time, and looks of horror and disgust from elderly strangers.Again, the public would have to see that you’re being indecent for this to happen, and while I’m not suggesting it, I think it’s quite likely you could get away with a bit of butt-naked driving if you were careful, particularly when getting in and out of the vehicle.Avowed nudists reading this article are, by now, no doubt wondering how the punishments for public indecency differ from state to state.In NSW the Summary Offences Act 1988 defines the offence of exposing genitals in a public place or a school as punishable with up to six months’ jail time or a fine of $1100. Specifically it says that “a person shall not, in or within view from a public place or a school, wilfully and obscenely expose his or her person”.If a driver is found to have broken this law, and this will very much come down to the discretion of a police officer, they really could go to jail.Victoria similarly prohibits such activity and defines 'public places' more extensively, specifically referring to roads as a space of public use, and the maximum punishment for exposure in those places is a more hefty penalty of two years of prison time.Intentional displaying of nudity in Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia - or performing an indecent act, in the opinion of the arresting officer - is similarly punishable with fines up to $2500, or a year in prison in certain cases where the exposure is defined as being “aggravated” (I assume this refers to cases of naked road rage, which sound very ugly indeed).What about driving shirtless? Say, on a return trip from the beach (and let’s face it, Australia can be very hot and some people can barely walk around the block these days without taking their shirts off in summer) or a session of Turkish Oil Wrestling (wrestling oil can ruin clothes)?It is here that we run into the question of context, because police officers are mostly not going to throw the law book at someone for driving shirtless, but if they are pulled over - and quite possibly this is more likely if the shirtless driver is a woman - the reason they give for doing so will be quite important in establishing context. Driving topless might be allowed, on a hot day, but it might draw more attention to you in the middle of winter.So, what have we learned? Nude driving can get you into trouble with the police, might get you fined or jailed, but this is quite unlikely.Researching this article forced me to purge my internet search history (seriously, be careful what you click on when researching driving naked).Can you drive naked? Sure, if you’re willing to accept the possible associated public indecency risks. Should you drive naked? That’s the more serious question and one you’ll have to ponder yourself.
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How to pay for a car via private sale
By Stephen Corby · 06 Dec 2024
Buying a car privately seems like the smarter, cheaper way to go about making what is, for most of us, the second biggest purchase we make in our lives, but when you’re talking about that much money, and handing it over to a complete stranger, how does that actually work?
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How much does it cost to charge an electric car at a public charging station?
By Stephen Corby · 05 Dec 2024
How much does it cost to charge an electric car at a public charging station in Australia? The entirely wonderful news is that the answer starts at a very reasonable “nothing” because there are some free charging stations out there.Much like service stations, with their highly combustible and holiday-dependent fuel prices, however, how much it costs to charge your EV at a public charging station will vary based on the supplier, the cost they are charging per kilowatt and the size of your car’s battery.If we base our answer on the average EV battery capacity of 60kWh and the mid-range charger price of around 40c/kWh, the average price to charge an EV would be $24, while the maximum price could be pushing $50.Keep in mind, of course, that that’s the cost for filling an entire battery from empty to 100 per cent, which you will never do, because running your EV completely flat is not great for your car, and even worse for you, because you’ll be stranded, and you can’t put a hose onto a nearby car and suck out volts with your mouth.Of course, once we take into account the widely different size of EV batteries - from a Fiat 500e with a 42kWh battery to a Porsche Taycan with 105kWh - and the speed and power of public chargers, which vary from 7.0kW to 350kW plus the pricing of public chargers, which range from that lovely free number to as much as 85c per kWh, you can see that calculating an accurate average is a task akin to juggling chainsaws on ketamine. Albeit slightly less dangerous.The other new wrinkle that EVs throw up that makes the price of charging them so different to filling a car with fuel is that the faster you’re filling up, the more it costs.Much like the “convenience” stores attached to service stations, and main streets everywhere, you’re paying for the convenience here, and this is a case where time really is money.What you probably really want to know, up front, is whether charging an EV at a public charging station is cheaper or more expensive than filling up a car with fuel at a petrol station.Considering the very cheapest price you can charge your electric car for is “free”, the answer is yes. Even if you use the most expensive ultra fast 350kW DC chargers, the price is still going to be around 20 per cent cheaper than filling a comparable vehicle with petrol, according to the EV Council.The other thing you’re probably very keen to hear is where can I find one of these free public charging stations? The good news is they do exist, the bad news is that they are all Tesla ones - or Tesla Destination Chargers, to be exact, which charge at a relatively modest 22kW but are free for Tesla owners (and sometimes for other EVs as well, it’s worth plugging into one to check).As of February 2024, there were 668 Tesla Destination Chargers around Australia, and more than 40,000 worldwide.Then we have the independent company JOLT’s free 7.0kWh of DC charging every day (15-20 minutes of charging, or roughly 50km of range) and the limited power (12-14kWh) free (albeit limited) charging stations found in council areas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We can expect, or hope, to see more of these in the future.Until recently, the NRMA was also offering free fast DC charging at more than 100 locations, but it brought in a charge for those in September, 2023.The NRMA is rolling its Fast (up to 150kW) and Ultra-Fast chargers on highways around the country and it is currently charging 54 cents per kilowatt hour for the Fast ones or 59 cents per kWh for the Ultra Fast, which offer 175kW charging.So, let’s use a Tesla Model 3 Long Range/Tesla Model Y as our standard size of battery from this point on, as they share a 75kWh battery and are two of the most popular EVs on our roads.For our typical Tesla, then, charging from 30 per cent full to 100 per cent would cost around $30 at an NRMA charger.Being a Tesla owner, of course, you could also avail yourself of the Tesla network of Superchargers, which offer between 100 and 120kW charging, and cost between 64 and 81c per kWh, depending on variables including membership fees, and whether you’re charging a Tesla or a non-Tesla.So again, that’s between $33 and $43 to go from 30 per cent to 100 per cent on a Tesla Model 3 Long Range or Tesla Model Y battery.Other providers of fast charging of between 100 and 120kW include Chargefox (45c to 60c per kWh), AmpCharge (at some Ampol service stations, between 60 and 69c) and Exploren (prices change by location).There are also DC chargers offering 25 to 50kW, 75kW, 150kW, 200 to 250kW and 'Ultra Rapid' charges at more than 350kW and prices range widely, from 15c per kWh to 85c.It’s important to remember that most people - more than 80 per cent, according to research - will do most of their EV charging at home, and another 80 per cent of EV purchasers have solar panels on their house, meaning they can, in theory, charge their vehicles for free.But there are more than 3700 public EV charging stations in Australia, and 100 per cent of EV owners will, at some point, have to use a public charging station.This inevitability leaves EV owners questioning whether a gas-guzzler would financially suit them better, but to compress a lengthy debate into a concise point; you’re better off with an EV.As for the physical process of charging an EV at a public charging spot, it’s almost identical to that of traditional refuelling. Approach the charging station gently with no sudden movements, plug your vehicle in, and retreat backwards whilst maintaining eye contact with the charger at all times.Unlike a fuel bowser, however, you can then walk off and have a coffee, or write a short novel, while waiting for the process to finish.
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Rolls-Royce Ghost 2025 review: International first drive
By Stephen Corby · 03 Dec 2024
Rolls-Royce does not launch its new cars in Birmingham or Leeds or anywhere English and drear, it launches them in places like Provence, where they make sense, and where their owners like to buy houses. Thus it was that the new Rolls-Royce Ghost Series II saw us flying all the way to the south of France to drive through lush beauty. Sigh.
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How long does it take to charge a Tesla?
By Stephen Corby · 28 Nov 2024
How long does it take to charge a Tesla? Well, it can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 hours, or more, depending on what kind of charging equipment you’re using, which model Tesla you’re charging and how you define 'charge'.
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Bentley Flying Spur 2025 review: Speed - International first drive
By Stephen Corby · 25 Nov 2024
The Bentley Flying Spur Speed is the place where decadent luxury and performance meet. It is a very special and frankly quite unusual car, and a very expensive one, too. We flew to a private race track in Japan to find out what it's like.
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When will diesel cars be banned in Australia?
By Stephen Corby · 23 Oct 2024
When will diesel cars be banned in Australia? The answer is no time soon, at least on a national basis, but if you’re asking will diesel cars be banned, it seems inevitable. The future of diesel cars in Australia would best be described as limited and their phasing out inevitable because they cause pollution and this is making them increasingly unpopular.
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