Opinion

In September 2022, Ford CEO told me directly that the Bronco would be coming to Australia. We, as a nation, have waited patiently, but the time is right for the brand’s most adventurous SUV to join the local line-up, complimenting the Ranger and Everest it’s so closely related to.And this isn’t just the pipe dream of one motoring journalist, there are several key events that appear to be lining up in favour of the Bronco making its way to Australia within the next few years. But first, a quick history lesson. I was fortunate enough to catch Farley directly at the reveal of the new-generation Mustang in Detroit and ask him directly about the chances of the Bronco and its Bronco Sport small SUV namesake making Australian showrooms. This is what he said.“We can do Bronco and Bronco Sport for the globe for sure,” Farley told me. “But we have, like, a year or two order bank so we have a lot of work to do on our capacity before we can even consider something like that.”He added: “Of course it can be engineered , just like Mustang, but you have to invest in the capacity and it’s like the first or second inning of building up the Bronco line-up. It’s a whole family, we’ve just come out with the Heritage, we’ve got Everglades, there’s going to be a lot of iterations so just give us some time.”That was nearly three years ago and in that time much of what he said has come to pass, unsurprisingly. Ford has continued to roll out special editions of the Bronco in the US market, the latest being the Stroppe and Free Wheeling versions. This has helped keep interest high in the US and therefore, as Farley referenced, it has meant international expansion is a lower priority.As we’ve previously reported, Ford opened a second Bronco production line in China last year, a joint-venture with Jangling Motors, which leaves the Michigan, USA plant free to focus on feeding the hungry American market. While Ford Australia has made no official comment on the Chinese factory being able to supply Bronco here, it does clear some notable hurdles. The biggest one is the cost of both production and shipping, with China being significantly cheaper than America in both aspects.There’s also the on-going trade war between China and the USA, which effectively rules out any chance the Chinese factory could supply Broncos back to America. This, theoretically, leaves the door open for Australia and its SUV-loving market to take pole position for a future Chinese-built, right-hand drive Bronco.Given the Bronco has been on sale in the US for more than five years, having been revealed in 2020, it is approaching a likely mid-life update. This would be the ideal opportunity for Ford to make good on Farley’s promise and introduce the Bronco to Australia.Given the success of the Ranger and Everest, which share the same underpinnings as the Bronco, it would likely be a welcome addition to Australian customers. Ford officials have previously indicated that the modest sales of the Jeep Wrangler (the closest direct rival to the Bronco) have been a cause of concern, but given the relative success of Ford’s Ranger ute to Jeep’s Gladiator, that is a spurious comparison.Should the Chinese plan get the green light, it’s likely the Bronco could be in Australian showrooms by 2027, given the time needed to finish development of the right-hand drive version and Ford Australia’s focus on launching the Ranger Super Duty in 2026.And while there’s no official comment from Ford to back any of this up, Farley’s commitment as the big boss says all signs point to the Bronco hitting Australian roads and trials eventually.

I put my life in the hands of a computer, trusting it to drive me at speed, in traffic on the mean streets of Los Angeles.Spoiler alert: I survived.There’s been a lot of talk about self-driving cars for more than a decade. Elon Musk has been publicly promising ‘full self-driving’ since at least 2015 but it’s yet to become a reality for Tesla. However, there is one company that isn’t just talking about it, it has more than 1000 driverless cars already on the road and chauffeuring the general public around in heavy traffic.That company is Waymo, which began life as the Google self-driving cars project but evolved to become its own entity, but still part of Alphabet Inc. that owns the search engine. The change of name came in 2016 and was a significant milestone for the project as it represented the shift from research and development to being a commercial business.The company also spent from 2009 (when Google first began the project) until 2020 developing the technology before it allowed members of the public to ride inside the cars and went fully commercial. The initial test period was in Phoenix, Arizona, but since then Waymo has expanded to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin.Fast forward to last week and a trip to Los Angeles as the Waymo One, which is a Jaguar I-Pace retrofitted with an array of technology, are a common sight on the streets. The white cars with the awkward looking add-ons drive around a specific region of the city, broadly speaking between Santa Monica and Hollywood, and navigate through regular traffic.Having been a long-time self-driving car skeptic, my initial reaction to seeing these cars was shock and concern. But as more and more of them appeared and seemingly negotiated LA traffic with confidence I became intrigued and in the name of journalism I decided to risk my life and go for a ride.Waymo operates as a robotaxi, so you book a ride just like you would an Uber, Didi or any app-based ride company. Simply download the app to your phone, add your credit card details and order a car — without a driver — to come and pick you up. Speaking of credit cards, interestingly, despite the expense Waymo has gone through developing this technology, I noticed that it was a much cheaper service than its rivals with a human driver. My approximately 10 minute ride cost just over US$11, while the equivalent Uber was closer to US$20.This does raise the human cost of driverless cars. There are tens of thousands of Australians currently earning a living either driving a taxi or working for a ride-sharing company. Replacing them with computers may be safer and cheaper, but it raises moral and ethical questions that we need to ask about how our society will be shaped by technology, in particular automation. But that’s a much longer story…Getting back to my first-hand experience with the Waymo One, what puts my mind at ease is just how much technology the company has added to the car. The sleek lines of the Jaguar are ruined by Waymo’s volume of cameras, sensors and other technology that is clearly needed to make this concept safe. In particular, Waymo has added both radar (radio detection and ranging) and lidar (light detection and ranging) rather than relying solely on cameras and sensors like Tesla prefers.There are a few small differences between Waymo and the other ride-sharing app, namely that you need to give it permission to connect to your Bluetooth, because it uses that to connect your phone to the car so you can open the doors.You identify your particular Waymo from the dozens you might see in any area with your initials displayed on the roof panel. When it pulled up, my car safely found a parking spot a few metres from where I was standing, the app prompts you to open the doors and climb in. Jumping into the passenger seat and being greeted by an empty driver’s seat is an unnerving experience the first time.The infotainment system gives you a brief introduction and explanation and then the car simply pulls away and gets the journey started. It doesn’t take long for any early nerves to settle as the Waymo One drives with more smoothness and confidence than many human equivalents can manage. It can not only stop, turn and go without missing a beat, it can also give someone hopping out of their car a wide berth, carefully merge into fast-flowing traffic and negotiate tricky spots. In short, this driverless car drives like a human. It doesn’t take long for our journey to end, with the infotainment screen telling us what to expect when the Waymo One pulls over, but it’s a short trip that left a big impression on me. Certainly my skepticism around the moral and ethical questions this technology raises remain, but I now have more confidence and belief in the technology.Thankfully, we’re probably still a few years away from having to deal with these questions in Australia, but make no mistake, the future is coming and we’ll eventually have to work out who we want taking the wheel…

Toyota and Ford dominate the Australian sales charts and are enjoying similar sales success around the world. So it should come as no surprise that both have a key trait in common, but what that trait is will shock you.I recently attended a motor race at California’s Laguna Seca Raceway, which was hosting the new Ford Mustang Challenge. This is a low-level, almost grassroots racing series designed to appeal to up and coming young racers looking to prove a point and older, gentleman drivers looking to indulge their passion for speed.It’s not a big time category, so much so the races were the first of the day, meaning an early start for all involved. So it shocked me when, as the cars rolled onto the track, I noticed one of the most powerful men in the automotive world smack bang in the middle of this amateur racing series.Jim Farley is the President and CEO of the Ford Motor Company Monday to Friday, but this weekend he was simply the driver of the #17 Ford Mustang. Meanwhile, over at Toyota, company Chairman Akio Toyoda is just as likely to be found behind the wheel of a race or rally car as he is behind a desk.He began racing alongside Toyota’s famous test driver, Hiromu Haruse, and established a skunk works within the massive company in 2007 to indulge in their passion for racing. Since then that project, Team Gazoo, has evolved into the Japanese company’s international performance brand - Gazoo Racing.Motor racing and performance cars are not everyone’s cup of tea, but as both companies have demonstrated, when the leader of a brand loves those things and is passionate about cars, as Farley and Toyoda clearly are, then it has a positive impact on the brand overall.Under Farley’s rule, Ford has implemented a ‘no boring cars’ philosophy and reinvested or revived iconic models like the Mustang and Bronco.It has expanded its electric vehicle range using its most famous nameplates, Mustang and F-150, too. And it has also pushed the limits of what it can do as a brand, with the supercar-rivalling Mustang GTD inspired directly from the brand’s racing car of the same name.Toyoda’s influence on the company his grandfather started is arguably even greater. During his time as President and CEO (positions he stepped down from in 2023), Toyoda oversaw a radical transformation of the company.In Toyota’s own words (via the story on Haruse’s influence on Toyoda) it’s strategy “was centred less on making good cars and more on making cars that sold well and were easy to manufacture”.Toyoda changed that, demanding that all Toyota vehicles be more exciting and engaging to drive, inspired by his own experiences racing for Team Gazoo under the pseudonym ‘Moziro’.This was a bold strategy, as it required major changes and big investment to improve what were already usually best-selling models, but the end result is Toyota has not only maintained its advantage in most areas but actually extended it.As many brands have found over the years, and not just in the automotive world, having a passionate and engaged leader is a big advantage. And while it’s not a negative that other car company CEOs may go off and play golf on their free weekends, it’s no coincidence that the brand’s led by the bosses that hit the racetrack instead are the ones leading the sales race.

Ford Australia has axed so many of its cars over the past two years that it almost has nothing left on sale. It’s just lucky that one of the few cars left that it does sell — the Ranger ute —  does so in enormous numbers. So what’s missing from Ford’s line-up? A lot. Here are the cars we think Ford really needs in Australia right now.Ford lacks a rival, to not just to hardcore four-wheel drives like the Toyota LandCruiser and Nissan Patrol, but to more domesticated Aussie family favourites such as the Toyota Kluger, Kia Sorento and Hyundai Santa Fe.Yes, the Ford Everest seats seven and can go off-road with the best of them, but a more plush and comfortable suburban cruiser would fit nicely in the line-up.Now this might hurt a little bit and I apologise in advance, but in South Africa you can buy a Ford Territory. I know, what the Ford!?So, the South African Ford Territory is made in China and sold in other countries but it’s made in right-hand drive, which means there’s no reason why we can’t have it here.This new Territory isn’t as big as the Santa Fe at 4.63m long so it’s not really a large SUV but still, what a shame.What Australia really needs is a Ford Explorer, as in the petrol-powered version form the United States, not the UK electric version. The US Explorer is a a five-metre long seven seater, while the UK version is 4.4m and smaller than an Escape.Nope, bigger is better in this case and while the Explorer is currently only made in left hand drive, there is a chance a right hand drive might get the green light for the next-gen model.Ford axing the Escape is the car company equivalent to throwing away your only pair of pants just because you don’t like the colour of them.OK, that’s a terrible analogy but the point is mid-sized SUVs are the bread and butter of car brands and they sell all year long in large numbers and they’re kind of an essential item to car manufacturers. Ford axed the Escape because it didn’t sell enough of them. But it could easily bring back the Escape because it’s sold in the right-hand drive in the UK.Ford should seriously consider it, the mid-sized SUV segment is increasing in size at 19.6 per cent market share and Ford’s not able to join in the spoils. Toyota has the RAV4, Kia has the Sportage, Nissan has the X-Trail and Ford has nothing. No pants to wear at all.If there’s something Australians love almost as much as mid-sized SUVs it’s a small SUV. We’re talking the likes of the Toyota Corolla Cross, Hyundai Kona and the MG ZS. And Ford did have the Puma, but axed it in 2024 just four years after it arrived.The Puma was a high-quality feeling and premium looking SUV, but it was overpriced compared to its rivals and so sales struggled. People want premium looking at budget prices apparently.The Puma is sold in the UK as a hybrid and a fully-electric vehicle, so bringing it to Australia wouldn’t require anything other than a trip on a boat from Romania where they’re made.So there you are, Ford has pretty much all the cars it needs in right-hand drive to take the fight to rivals such as the Toyota RAV4 and Corolla Cross, the Kia Sorento and Hyundai Santa Fe.Will we see the Territory again? Will Aussies be OK with a Chinese made Territory? Given the the shift in attitudes and growing maturity towards Chinese brands and their rapid take-up there's no reason they wouldn't be.Sure bringing back the Territory nameplate, plus the Puma and Escape could be a risk for Ford, but would it be as big a risk as having all your eggs in the Ranger basket as it does now?

What is the best car to drive for a ride hailing service like Uber, Ola and Didi? Well, we thought we’d give you our two cents. Not only are we car experts and have driven thousands of new vehicles but we also spend a surprising amount of time sitting in the back of ride share cars talking to drivers. 

Does size matter? It’s an age-old question but when it comes to cars, it’s complicated.Most car reviews - rightly - will cover whether the model represents good value for money. That will usually include a focus on what is and isn’t included in the standard features list, the safety offering, quality of materials and more.Often this will include whether you get enough metal for your money. Is the car big enough for the price?My question is, should size factor into the value of a car? And how do you fairly determine value when each buyer has a different budget?I understand that everyone has different requirements when looking for a new car. A family of five will require more space than a family of two, or a single person, for example.But I would argue that size should not determine whether a car represents good or bad value for money.Again, I appreciate that many people will want as much car as they can get for their money, based on how they will use it. But surely things like overall vehicle quality, the drive experience and how the car makes you feel are just as important.Here’s an example. A Honda Civic e:HEV L costs $49,900 (drive-away). When compared with old foes like the Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla, it is seen as being quite a lot of money for a small hatchback.For roughly the same price as the Civic, you could buy an entry grade large seven-seat SUV like a Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe, Isuzu MU-X, or a Toyota Kluger.But just because you can get a bigger car for the same price, should you?If you don’t need the space, then I say you shouldn’t. And not just for reasons like the environmental impact of large vehicles, or the sheer space it takes up on the road. Although those reasons are also valid.If a smaller car ticks other boxes including being fun to drive, that should be enough.Back to my example - the Honda Civic hybrid is an excellent car. I would argue it’s the best small passenger car (as in, not an SUV) on sale in Australia. It has excellent build quality, a solid standard features list, a handsome design, nicely executed interior and an exceptional and efficient powertrain.Something like that is a perfect car for me. And I don’t feel like I would be ripped off buying this instead of a larger car.Similarly, if someone has the means to buy a premium car instead of something from a mainstream brand, that’s fine. As Donna Meagle famously said in Parks and Recreation, “Treat yo’self!”Sure, a circa-$60,000 BMW 120 hatch may not have the same level of standard features as a higher grade Toyota Corolla or Mazda3 - which cost $20,000 less - but who cares?If you have your heart set on a premium car like a BMW and you’ve got the money for it, then it doesn’t matter if it’s missing a few features.Whether it’s the materials in the cabin, the way it drives or the feeling you get when driving a premium European car, a model like that often just feels more special.A couple of years back I lived with a Peugeot 308 Premium GT hatchback for four months. That specific grade at the time was priced at $48,990 before on-road costs. Again, there was a lot of commentary about that being a lot of money “for a small hatchback”.I am not suggesting it’s cheap - it clearly isn’t. But that is an excellent little car that made me smile every time I got behind the wheel. I would be happy - proud even - to own one.To reiterate, there is nothing wrong with trying to get as much car as possible for your budget. If you want as many standard features as you can possibly get for $40k, and you are less fussed about how the car drives or its perceived quality, terrific. And there’s no shortage of options, especially with the growing number of Chinese brands offering affordable models.But equally, no one should be shamed for spending big bucks on a car that isn’t the size of a boat, or if it doesn’t tick every single box on the standard features list.

As any brand not named Toyota will tell you, breaking into the upper echelon of Australia’s ute market is incredibly tough. Even the mighty Ford Motor Company, which invented the utility vehicle, took decades to crack the code and give the HiLux some serious competition.

You’ve seen them on the road, billowing black smoke and belching foul fumes - the old dungers and banged-up utes with their couldn’t care less drivers. At a time when driving an EV makes you a net-zero hero, the polluters driving those vehicles are the bargain-basement equivalent of flying by private jet, so why do we do so little to get them off the roads?In the US, they conduct “smog testing” on old vehicles and if they fail, they’re taken off the road. In Australia, we focus on setting emissions standards for new vehicles and turn a largely blind eye to high-emitting old ones. Currently, our “vehicle emissions intensity” remains notably higher than Europe (107g/km for them vs 150g/km for us) and “remains closer to – but still higher than – levels in the United States and Canada”, according to the National Transport Commission.So how much difference would it make if we got those polluting dirt boxes off the road? Prepare to have your mind blown. In one study, a group of Italian researchers calculated how much Rome’s air quality would improve if 10 per cent of its city’s many, many cars  became EVs overnight, and - spoiler alert - it was significant.But then they did a second calculation: what would happen if the city required just the top 1 per cent of polluters to go electric? Pollution would drop by the same amount as the 10 per cent shift.Now, let me introduce you to the work of genuine genius and inventor Donald Stedman (he died in 2016, but I learned of him thanks to Malcolm Gladwell’s brilliant new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point), who was a chemist at the University of Denver.Back in the 1990s, Stedman came up with a machine that used infrared light to instantly measure and analyse the emissions of cars driving past. Gladwell spent a day by the side of a highway in Denver watching the machine at work and quickly realised that very few vehicles set it off.Stedman explained that those few cars were the primary cause of the state’s air-pollution problem. A small number of vehicles were producing carbon-monoxide levels as much as 100 times higher than the average.Indeed, in 2006, Stedman discovered that just 5 per cent of the vehicles on the road were producing 55 per cent of automobile pollution. “Obviously, the older a car is, the more likely it is to become broken - it’s the same as human beings,” Stedman explained.“It’s not unusual that these failures result in higher emissions. We have at  least one vehicle in our database which was emitting 70 grams of hydrocarbon per mile, which means you could almost drive a Honda Civic on the exhaust fumes from that car.”Stedman’s seemingly intelligent suggestion was that someone should set up his devices on major roads around Denver, and police could then pull over and smog test anyone who failed. He predicted that just half a dozen of his roadside smog checkers could check 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles a day, resulting in a reduction of emissions for the state of 35 to 40 per cent.Gladwell reports that other studies around the world have found similar results: “somewhere around 10 per cent of vehicles are, at any given time, responsible for over half the automobile-based air pollution.”So how likely is it that the situation is the same in Australia? Well, remember what Stedman said about older cars and consider that the National Transport Commission says data from 2024 suggests the average age of cars in Australia is 11.2 years. “This figure is a significant factor in Australia's emissions intensity, with a large portion of the fleet having emissions above 250 g/km, a statistic that remains a concern,” the NTC’s report adds.Furthermore, seven years after local manufacturing ended, Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons are still in the top 10 of vehicle models on our roads. “These models, with a high average emissions intensity of around 260 g/km, are emblematic of a broader trend: 77 per cent of all vehicles on our roads today with an emissions intensity above 250 g/km first entered the fleet between 2003 and 2013.“By contrast, 93 per cent of registered vehicles with an emissions intensity of up to 120 g/km entered the fleet in the years since 2014.”And what do we do, in Australia, about getting the more broken, higher-emitting old cars off our roads? Well, in Queensland for example, there are no periodic emissions inspections once a vehicle is registered, but mobile road teams do conduct random emissions tests through a program called OVERT (On-Road Vehicle Emissions Random Testing), and drivers may be pulled over if their vehicles emit visible smoke.This sounds promising, as does the fact that OVERT uses “a four-gas analyser to measure carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon levels in the exhaust”. What is remarkable, however, is that even if your car fails utterly and is clearly a threat to public health, let alone the environment, “Regardless of the test result, no legal action is taken.”Instead, “vehicles graded ‘Fair' or ‘Poor' receive a recommendation to have the car serviced”.Smog checks in the US, by comparison, involve punishment for vehicles that fail: “You may lose your vehicle registration stickers and be unable to drive the vehicle legally. You will need to have the necessary repairs made and repeat the test.”But let’s not rush to give the US too many plaudits. Four decades after Donald Stedman invented his theoretically game-changing smog-detector, the state of Colorado is yet to enact his plan in Denver and the city’s air quality, which was apparently not so bad in the early 2000s, has gotten worse over the past decade. Here in Australia, though, it seems like a few small but seemingly obvious changes to our rules, and the way enforce them, could make a huge change to our emissions, and to the levels of harmful gases on our roadways. And most of us wouldn’t even be forced to buy an EV. So my question is, as yet another black-smoke-chugging old banger coughs past you on the road today, why isn’t anyone - not even the Greens - talking about this as an election issue?

In 2025 branding means way more than a hot iron mark scorched into a steer’s backside.It’s about a brand’s personality, reputation and your interactions with it. What it says about you. What it delivers. How it makes you feel. A visual identity, a design style… and a million other things.   And there are automotive brands in the Australian new-car market that have strategically built solid brand equity over many decades.Current market leader, Toyota began dipping its corporate toe into global export waters by shipping cars here in the late 1950s. And other Japanese makers like Honda, Mazda and Nissan followed it in conquering initial hesitancy by steadily investing in strong retail networks, pushing product improvement and focusing on a positive customer experience.Ford has built its global brand around everything from the Model T and its revolutionary assembly line to pumped up muscle cars and victory at Le Mans. While here it embedded itself in the local landscape via a manufacturing presence spanning close to a century and regular victory at Mount Panorama.And more recently, relative newcomers like Hyundai and Kia have moved rapidly from cheap and (mostly) cheerful to innovators that repositioned the concept of value and quality in the local market.All of which led to large pockets of ‘rusted on’ brand loyalty. The concept of ‘Ford and Holden families’ started to diminish from the moment the latter departed the scene in 2020 (if not before), but Toyota’s reputation for value, durability and affordable ownership has seen it maintain a legion of never-say-die fans.Same for Ford, Mazda, Mitsubishi and others. But I'd argue a turning point was when, after an initial false start through a private importer in 2013, MG set up as a direct subsidiary in 2017.Great Wall had landed as the first Chinese car brand in the Aussie market in 2009, but MG 2.0 was different. Even if its ‘Since 1924’ positioning stretched credulity, its products were better than expected and pricing was ultra sharp.Sharp enough to encourage budget-focused new-car buyers, even used-car prospects, to give the brand a go.With the introduction of new-generation products in the early 2020s sales took off like a rocket, and it’s here that my ‘That’s a good idea’ theory kicks in.I reckon executives at rival Chinese car brands, keeping an eye on MG’s increasing success Down Under, all had the same ‘good idea’ at the same time. Namely, let’s get into Australia and grab a piece of that action. Hence the subsequent arrival of Chery in 2023, itself a factory-backed restart after an initial import-distribution arrangement broke down back in 2011. Followed by the flood gates opening, with BYD, Deepal, Geely, a ramped up GWM, JAC, LDV, Leapmotor, Smart, Jaecoo, XPeng and Zeekr all jumping in with Aion, Avatar, Jetour, Lynk & Co, Skyworth and others waiting in the wings.Doesn’t matter which category you’re talking about - white goods, sporting equipment, hi-fi - if one fresh competitor enters a mature market, it’s likely to be met with reluctance, even contempt by existing brand loyalists.But if near enough to 20 newcomers blaze into market at the same time, clearly something seismic is going on and it feels like you’d be missing a trick if you didn’t at least investigate the rapidly changing competitive landscape.Give them the benefit of 20/20 hindsight as well as a time machine and it’s not certain all the new brands above would currently be making an Aussie entrance.But multiple triggers have been pulled with retail network deals done, head office staff recruited, parts warehousing set up, service and sales training completed and marketing campaigns launched. So, in a mature market, early movers like MG, Chery and GWM have the advantage and more recent arrivals will need to find a way to win over buyers… fast. And it’s a fair bet the ever-impactful lever marked price will be pulled on a regular basis.Some of the newcomers as well as more than a few existing legacy brands will be forced into a price war. Like it or not, loyalty comes under pressure when the incentive is enticing enough and with a cut-price cage fight likely to take place sooner rather than later not everyone will leave the octagon alive.Stand by for new-car buyers tempted en masse into ‘unbeatable deals’ that mean brand loyalties will be stretched beyond breaking point. The shake out from this looming war of attrition will be huge. 

It’s started again - the talk about how autonomous cars are just around the corner.But are self-driving cars really going to be with us any time soon? Because it feels as though carmakers have been promising autonomous vehicles for a long time now, yet it seems like we’re still no closer to owning a vehicle that can drive us home or to work.Despite this, many car brands think autonomous vehicles are on our doorstep. Is that true? And if so, do we really want to let them in?Volkswagen’s global CEO of Commercial Vehicles Professor Dr Carsten Intra believes they are indeed imminent. “You think that going from combustion to electrification is a big change?” Dr Carsten asked Australia’s auto media last week at the Volkswagen Multivan launch. “And it is, but going autonomous will change our business. This is coming, it's in front of the door. Not just in 10 or 15 years, it will be sometime tomorrow. We are going through the world and testing our fleets in different cities.”Dr Carsten is referring to the fleet of self-driving ID. Buzz electric vans being tested by Volkswagen through its special autonomous company MOIA.Fitted with autonomous tech for full-self driving (but with a human babysitter on board) VW is testing the ID. Buzzes in the United States and Europe. The fleet has just been to Oslo, Norway for winter testing in snow and ice. The self-driving ID. Buzz has a high level of autonomous ability, level 4 actually, a level down from the fully autonomous Level 5 which doesn’t need a human chaperon. This is the level Volkswagen hopes to reach by 2030. These levels from 1 to 5 are just increasingly sophisticated forms of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Most new cars are at Level 2 and have systems that can take over steering, braking and acceleration.But Level 5, which can handle any situation without driver input, is much more complicated. While it may work in theory or on a closed circuit, what about on the Pacific Highway in Sydney at 8:30am on a Monday?So with 2030 less than five years away and as a journalist who has written story after story as car company after car company has made promise after promise of autonomous vehicles, I can tell you that the chances of fully autonomous cars driving on Australian roads by 2030 are close to zero.Forgive me for being jaded, but the autonomous car dream is and probably will always remain a dream. I wasn’t always so pessimistic about this. Back in 2016 I was very excited to write a story for CarsGuide about Ford’s bold claim that it was so far advanced into mastering autonomous tech that they’d have self-driving cars everywhere by 2021.“Ford will be mass producing vehicles with full autonomy within five years and that means there will be no steering wheels, no gas pedals and no brake pedals - a driver is not going to be required," Ford’s then global chief Mark Fields announced.Well it’s 2025 and these pedal-less, steering wheel-less driverless cars are nowhere to be seen.Ford isn’t the only one. Most car companies in the past 10 years have said they are on the cusp of autonomous breakthroughs from Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and Audi to Volvo and Hyundai.Well they used to say that and many companies made bold claims, just like Ford’s, that they, too, would have autonomous cars in just a matter of years. But most of the car manufacturers have gone quiet on the topic of self-driving cars. All except Tesla with its so-called full self-driving function which is very likely just advanced driver assistance and not full self-driving. Actually in recent weeks Tesla has had to re-think what it calls its driving system due to regulatory issues in China.Tesla’s claims of having full-self driving modes 10 years ago probably caused the rest of the industry to suddenly work harder and faster on their own autonomous projects only for all of us to reach this point where we’ve discovered that you can absolutely teach a car to drive, but setting it loose on public roads is going to create a multitude of problems from safety and legal to ethical dilemmas. Besides, Volkswagen isn't the first to have fleets testing in cities. Ride-hailing companies such as Waymo have been working on autonomous tech for years only to run into operational difficulties with cars getting lost or even attacked.Until recently Waymo's fleet of autonomous taxis has operated in just the United States with San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin being the main cities where the service can be found. Now Waymo is going further afield to Japan and is using Tokyo as its first location outsided the US to test the autonomous tech.Waymo will have been testing and operating its fleet of autonomous cars for 10 years in 2026. An achievement in itself and while the technology has come far it hasn't been without inicident. There have been cases where Waymo vehicles have malfunctioned or become confused. Two years ago in Phoenix 12 Waymos all turned up in the same street at the same time and caused a traffic jam, while last year in San Francisco a car park being used to hold dozens of Waymo vehicles erupted into chaos as the empty cars began honking at each other for no apparant reason.Hiccups aside it's truly amazing how well Waymo's fleet of electric Jaguar iPace SUVs can navigate through complicated terrain such as hilly San Francisco with its myriad of streets. Waymo has also recently signed a new deal with Chinese carmaker Zeekr to use its electric Mix people mover in 2025.Volkswagen's own testing with its ID. Buzz fleets will indeed add to the advancement of autonomous tech, too.Progress is slow, however, and for good reason - safety, regulations, ethics and the unpredicatability of other road users present huge challenges for a technology that's expected to be as good, if not better, than humans. Volvo is a safety tech pioneer in the auto industry and one of the first to start developing autonomous systems. But in 2023 Volvo Cars CEO and President Jim Rowan made a startling admission: self-driving cars won’t happen anytime soon.  "So first of all, this big myth that there's five different levels of autonomy is nonsense, in my opinion," he said. "You've got two levels of autonomy. One is your hands on the steering wheel. One is your hands off the steering wheel."Can we drive a car fully autonomous? Yes. Does regulation allow that? No. So I think regulation will be the barrier towards full adoption of full AD more than technology," he said.“Driving inside the city when there's schools and roadworks, and there's a lot of change every day, I think that's a long, long way off.”So if the boss of the company which was so far ahead in developing fully autonomous cars has declared the mission more or less over for now, what’s caused Volkswagen to make its autonomous claims? Well, we’ll have to wait and see but I think we’ll be waiting a lot longer before we start seeing.