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.

Note: The author, Stephen Corby, is a co-owner of Smart As Media, a content agency and media distribution service with a number automotive brands among its clients. When producing content for CarsGuide, he does so in accordance with the CarsGuide Editorial Guidelines and Code of Ethics, and the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

Lexus hybrid cars in Australia: Everything you need to know
By Stephen Corby · 23 Aug 2022
Lexus, the luxury division of Japanese auto giant Toyota, passed the major milestone of having sold two million electrified vehicles - meaning electric vehicles (EVs), hybrids and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) - in the first quarter of 2021, a signifier of the brand’s long-term commitment to reducing CO2 emissions and having a more positive environmental impact.
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Best second-hand electric cars in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 23 Aug 2022
It’s been a decade since the Nissan Leaf arrived on Australian roads promising to revolutionise the automotive industry. It was followed shortly after by the Tesla Model S and BMW i3 and now most major car brands either have, or are preparing to launch, their own electric vehicle (EV).
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The top 10 electric commercial vehicles to keep an eye on in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 05 Aug 2022
For the uninitiated, “commercial vehicles” aren’t cars that star in TV ads. What the term actually refers to are any vehicles designed to transport multiple passengers or carry goods, and they typically come in the form of a van or a ute/pick-up truck.
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The top 9 electric vehicle manufacturers
By Stephen Corby · 27 Jul 2022
Shouting about climate change and car emissions seems to have been going on for decades, but it’s not that long ago that the idea of banning the sale of fossil fuel-consuming internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles would have been unimaginable.
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EV charging stations in Australia explained
By Stephen Corby · 27 Jul 2022
There are a lot of things to dislike about service stations: petrol pump nozzles you need to insert and withdraw a dozen times before they work, water to wash your windscreen with that looks like it’s been retrieved from a toilet and rest rooms that more often than not look like crime scenes. And smell worse.
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The ten cheapest hybrid cars in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 27 Jul 2022
If you’re on the hunt for a cheap car, then a hybrid electric vehicle should be a strong contender when sizing up possibilities, since the savings continue well after you decide to drive one home.
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Volvo electric cars in Australia: Everything you need to know
By Stephen Corby · 12 Jul 2022
Sweden has a fine history of world-beating brands - IKEA, Spotify, ABBA - but none has been around for as long as Volvo, the epitome of “safe and sensible”. It may be a little less Swedish these days - Chinese multinational automotive company Geely Holding Group took ownership of Volvo in 2010 - but the brand will forever by synonymous with the land of meatballs, herring and blonde people.
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Top five hybrid SUVs in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 08 Jul 2022
When it comes to electrified vehicles, Australians all seem to have the same concern: our country is genuinely massive, and the all-electric range offered by EVs typically isn’t. This tends to ignore the logical point that most of us don’t drive from Brisbane to Broome very often, but who said humans are logical?
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Top 10 most energy efficient EVs in Australia
By Stephen Corby · 06 Jul 2022
When a driver gets behind the wheel of an electric vehicle (EV) for the very first time, there are a few things that mark it as a decidedly different driving experience, compared to an internal-combustion engine (ICE): the instant torque, the silence and the absence of fuel fumes. 
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Nissan Ariya 2023 review
By Stephen Corby · 05 Jul 2022
The new Nissan Ariya - a crossover SUV-sized EV with a classy interior, future-sexy exterior and up to 533km of range - is a huge leap forward from the company's Leaf, and a solid step up on most electric vehicles on the market. Unfortunately the rest of the world is getting it first.
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