Heavy diesel four-wheel-drive vehicles face a quicker path to extinction than commercial utes under the government’s new vehicle emissions standards because they have been categorised as passenger cars and face a tougher set of emissions reduction targets,

As calls grow within the industry for the government to slow down the proposed emissions reduction trajectory or risk driving out vehicles for which there is no comparable low-emissions alternative, it has emerged that even cars with the same engines and emissions profiles will be placed in separate categories because of nothing more than body shape.