Interesting story here on BBC news about whether to buy a Electric car or not.
In the UK they have charging points at supermarkets and cinemas, so you can recharge while shopping or watching a movie. Also you don't pay for a recharge so its free fuel.
One woman sold hers after 3 years of usage as she was too scared sitting in a car park in the dead of night waiting for her battery to charge.
2.5 million I think...I will just have to sell a couple of paintings...no I just cant part with them at any price.
All I hope is that the wasteful greedy folk see it as fashionable and perhaps guide others to give up on the 4000 hp petrol job I saw a couple of weeks ago.
Actually there are some rather expensive electric boats being produced so maybe at the top things may change.
Interesting story here on BBC news about whether to buy a Electric car or not.
In the UK they have charging points at supermarkets and cinemas, so you can recharge while shopping or watching a movie. Also you don't pay for a recharge so its free fuel.
One woman sold hers after 3 years of usage as she was too scared sitting in a car park in the dead of night waiting for her battery to charge.
Of course the UK government provides buyers with a subsidy, to defray the cost, not something likely to ever happen here. Interestingly, I saw that BMW, maker of the Mini, has announced that they have 43000 forward expressions of interest for the electric Mini starting production on 1 November. I understand MG has sold out their first shipment of their electric model from China.
Am I relegated to become like my Old Man, clinging romantically to steam trains like they still possess some kind of relevance?
That's a good analogy. Just like steam trains, and "current" vintage cars etc, transport appliances of yesteryear will continue to provide enjoyment to enthusiasts. Nothing wrong with that at all. 3801 might not be relevant today but it's still an absolute marvel. You might still become like your old man in other ways though..
stuff them all still electric as far as iam concerned does nothing but use electicity from power stations ,maybe some are solar ,I have 2 horses in my family they are much easier to maintain and look after then a expensive electric car, and will go 3 times the distance
I've been giving some serious thought to an EV car but also seriously considering 120km away from the city (living at a dark site and working in the city). A 250km round trip is definitely possible off a single charge from any of the current crop but charging also becomes more difficult with wanting to go off-grid too!
What I am more interested in is a hydrogen car, electric engine that's operated by a hydrogen fuel cell.
But a puppy just like this one will be in my garage in about a month.....(pictured: Model 3 at Martin Place showroom Sydney)
Fuel cost...hummm...depends on how much our rooftop PV system can deliver....
...but assuming a 55kw of charge @ 11 cents per Kw (off peak rates) and say 20Kw from our PV system (the car battery needs 75kw for a full charge) , then $6.05 for 600km (Tesla quote a 620 km range, but, I don't believe them)
Yes, around 1 cent per kilometre.
My current wheels run at about 13 cents per kilometre....i.e. an order of magnitude more.
OK I could have bought a another petrol/diesel burner and saved a motza on the capex of the Tesla...but...for local running about I can just use PV, emissions are zero.
There is little doubt that some form of non-fossil fuel vehicle is going to be the norm within a generation or two. Whether these various forms will realise the green dreams that are touted about for them is yet to be seen.
However, it should be borne in mind that Australia is a major (if not THE major) exporter of coal and gas and if "all proposed fossil fuel developments went ahead, including Adani’s Carmichael mine, other proposed coal developments in the Galilee Basin and liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Western Australia, and other countries adopted policies consistent with the Paris agreement, Australia could be linked to up to 17% of carbon pollution." (The Guardian 8 July, 2019). We are clearly not on any fast track to a fossil-free future either at home or abroad any time soon. So I expect we will see a significant proportion of motor vehicles burning fossil fuels for many more generations than that.
Other factors impacting on the future pathway include the looming trade wars that will potentially limit western access to the rare earths needed for magnets and batteries. And of course, the development of different fuel and storage technologies can't be seen clearly but it is certain there will be a lot of attention to both as we go forward.
I don't intend to be an early adopter of electric cars. I acknowledge the sexy attractions of a nice shiny Tesla. No doubt about it. But in ten years time, what will be the value of such a vehicle in your Red Book? Will they retain value if their batteries are dead and represent a past age of technology? Possibly not. So for me, it is wait-and-see.
Nice one Peter W! Will look out for your shiny Tesla around the Shire We have a plug-in hybrid - a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. With Aus still backwards in both charging infrastructure and in supporting fully EVs (which would do most people for >>90% of their driving), we needed to compromise. But even the ~50km EV range of the Outlander does perfectly for all my wife's commutes to Lucas Heights (a ~30km round trip). Virtually all our local driving in the Shire and Royal NP is 100% seriously fun EV. Our daily 'fuel' cost ~$1.20 for a full charge. We now fill the 40l petrol tank maybe every 2nd month, and get on average over 1000km for about 30l petrol (was 1700km the last time, maybe will be 900km on next fill because of a Blue Mountains trip). We rent our house (so no solar/battery), but buy 100% green electricity, and our total bill is still only ~$200/ month or less, charging is cheap! Petrol gets used for parts of longer drives, which are still efficient on the interesting part-electric drivetrain of the PHEV, with regen braking etc.
With the range of EVs rising quickly, and affordability improving quickly, the next one for us will almost certainly be a fully electric. Fewer moving parts, so EVs are much easier to maintain too, way easier than horses... With big chunks of the world's car manufacturing and markets going towards non-fossil fuel versions, Australia will not have a choice, but to follow, dragged kicking and screaming in to the 21st Century.
Just on Australia's CO2 export burden, I was reading a couple of days ago that we are the third largest exporter of CO2 (ie Coal, natural gas, etc).
So not the worst, I think Russia might be in there somewhere, but a long way to go to reduce our governments dependence on coal export tax revenues.
I think plug in hybrids are a transitional alternative that just seem to have been skipped over and would have been a very good option in Australia for a couple of generations of the storage.
Take a Nissan Leaf, that gives you maybe 200KM of realistic, reliable range in the car you can buy right now, add a tiny little combustion engine (Petrol or diesel, who cares) that drives only a generator that replenishes battery charge (Not the wheels) fit maybe a 25L fuel tank and suddenly you have 500KM or so of touring range from full on both sources to empty. A little smarts in the software and interface so that the car monitors battery charge and offers you the option to fire up the range extension at some point before it runs dry, which you can cancel if for instance you know you are 10KM from home or a planned charging stop with 50KM of electric range to run, ignore it and it starts topping up, cancel it having forgotten the detour you had to make and it fires up by itself at some point when range is getting tight.
Until storage becomes cheap and capacity and charge times improve to more or less equal the convenience of an ICE car (Which WILL happen sooner or later) it would be a seriously good stop-gap, with the bonus of a 5 minute top up of the range extender every couple of hundred KM if you had an extended trip to do. That would suit probably 90% of the population.
The BMW i3 included a 650cc motor cycle engine to generate power to give it extra range. Users appeared to think it worked great, but they dropped it from the latest model.
I wonder how many sjw, climate change protesting, save-the-planet people drive an electric vehicle? I believe there were one or two in Bob Brown's recent convoy up the east coast - unfortunately they got stuck when they ran out of power.
Just as an side, I saw a Hyundai Ioniq in traffic today, the first of those I have seen. IMO when you see brads like Hyundai and Nissan offering pure EV's in Australia, adoption rates are probably about to climb significantly. It helps that they have started to build EV's that just look like cars. IMO the problem with the Prius from day one has been Toyota's insistence on styling them as the visual equivalent of walking around in budgie smugglers screaming "Look at me, I have a PRIUS" The current one being largely as bad as the first. I don't want to drive a car that looks like a refugee from a 50's scifi movie with big lightning bolts painted all over it, if I buy one I just want to to look like a car but be powered differently. You wonder about the relevance of the Prius now you can buy a Corolla or Camry with that type of powertrain.
While either would need charging daily (The Leaf or Ioniq) both would be capable of being a pure commuter car for me right now. Give it some time when they are five to ten grand cheaper and they start to look seriously attractive.