Articles by Stephen Ottley

Stephen Ottley

Contributing Journalist

Steve has been obsessed with all things automotive for as long as he can remember. Literally, his earliest memory is of a car. Having amassed an enviable Hot Wheels and Matchbox collection as a kid he moved into the world of real cars with an Alfa Romeo Alfasud.

Despite that questionable history he carved a successful career for himself, firstly covering motorsport for Auto Action magazine before eventually moving into the automotive publishing world with CarsGuide in 2008. Since then he's worked for every major outlet, having work published in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Drive.com.au, Street Machine, V8X and F1 Racing.

These days he still loves cars as much as he did as a kid and has an Alfa Romeo Alfasud in the garage (but not the same one as before... that's a long story).

How Hyundai will boom in 2023 and beyond

By Stephen Ottley · 03 Dec 2022

Hyundai is readying to unleash a wave of new electrified models in a bid to recover lost ground in the sales race and establish itself as an electric vehicle leader. Fresh off launching 18 new or updated models in an 18 month period, the South Korean brand’s Australian operation has confirmed it will introduce 17 new or face lifted products between now and early 2024.

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Spied: Australia's cheapest electric car?

By Stephen Ottley · 02 Dec 2022

The BYD Atto 3 is set to get company soon, with an example of the Chinese brand’s Dolphin electric hatchback spotted on a Sydney street. The lightly camouflaged right-hand drive vehicle is seemingly undergoing final testing ahead of its launch here in 2023.

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The new cars we need Down Under

By Stephen Ottley · 27 Nov 2022

Australians are spoiled for choice in the new car market with literally hundreds of models to choose from. But we could always do with more…

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The hidden benefits of electric cars

By Stephen Ottley · 27 Nov 2022

I was reviewing a Genesis GV60 last week. Why was that good? Because it’s one of the few current electric vehicles on the market today that offer bi-directional charging - otherwise known as vehicle-to-load (V2L).

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No Prius? No problem...

By Stephen Ottley · 26 Nov 2022

Toyota unveiled a striking new Prius last week in Los Angeles, but there’s uncertainty over whether or not this new hybrid hero will make it to Australia.

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How Twitter impacts Tesla's future

By Stephen Ottley · 20 Nov 2022

Yes, that headline will surely make the keyboards fire up with a mixture of ‘I told you so’ and ‘how dare you doubt Tesla’ - but let’s all take a deep breath and ask ourselves that question in a neutral tone.

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Do you really care how fast your car is?

By Stephen Ottley · 19 Nov 2022

The Mercedes-AMG One hypercar reclaimed the Nurburgring Nordschleife lap record for production cars recently, lapping the 20km German circuit in 6:35.183 minutes.

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Why Volvo is right to go all-electric

By Stephen Ottley · 19 Nov 2022

At first glance, Volvo Australia’s decision to accelerate its switch to an all-electric line-up by 2026 could be seen as a major risk. After all, electric vehicles only make up 2.6 per cent of all cars sold in the first 10 months of 2022, so there’s still plenty of life left in the internal combustion engine in the Australian car market.

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Why EVs need to be awesome - not just 'green'

By Stephen Ottley · 13 Nov 2022

Say what you will about Tesla - and I’m sure many of you will in the comments section - but the American brand was unquestionably the catalyst for the current electric car boom in the car industry.

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Why car names are getting worse

By Stephen Ottley · 12 Nov 2022

Naming cars used to be simple - either you picked some evocative names (think Mustang, Falcon, Monaro, etc) or a sequence of numbers and/or letters (think 3 Series, C-Class, A4, etc) - but these days it feels more like car names are randomly selected by marketing teams rushing to get to the weekend.

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