I really cant wait for electric cars to take over, if only to shove it up the Saudis... and to get rid of fossil fuels.
But other than the usual financial constraints, I'll wait for Peter and others to iron out the bugs and enjoy economically practical motoring in 10yrs or so. In the meantime, we are leading the way with our 80 acre farm, about to sign a contract with landcare, for 10 acres of our place to be fenced off and planted out with many native species to create our slice of heaven
I have a Tesla Model 3 on order.
620km long range version.
With 8.6kw of PV on my roof it means running costs are basically tyres, pads, rego, insurance.
Not too keen to paying the likes of Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell & BP etc. any more to bugger-up the atmosphere.
BTW anybody watch Attenborough on the ABC tonight? Step up people.
Reduce your CO2 footprint. Too many species are extinct already.
Congrats Peter, my son was pushing me today to order Model 3. Sadly I can't afford one now that I am retired, but I might be able to afford a Hyundai or the forthcoming MG model, if the gov't would drop GST on EVs. BTW, your in NSW and Rego is free if your a pensioner or even just a part-pensioner. I wouldn't rock up to a Centrelink interview on a Tesla though.
Just a word on ebikes, for those of us that can't afford an electric car, ebikes are a great way to reduce our use of our cars for short trips, like to the shops. I use my ebike for fair weather shopping (with panniers for load). Most budget ebikes will give you between 30 and 50kms of useable range, and they have plenty of grunt, you only need to turn the pedals over to keep Pedal Assist Mode running. Also, most ebikes have provision for a controller jumper removal to unlock full power under the twist grip throttle, which really turns it into a small electric motorcycle. Ebikes are becoming very popluar urban commuting vehicles in Europe and America, not to mention China.
Of course stepping up from an ebike, there are now fully legal road registered electric motorcycles available in Australia, from modest models like the Sur-ron right up to the Harley Livewire (which I find scary, and nearly as expensive as an electric car).
First up I will say that throwing insults around at those who like motorsport is counter productive. I like motorsport, though contrary to much public opinion I am not the least bit fond of drags (Street or otherwise) street drifting, burnouts or V8 Supercars, I don't eat babies either. I can see that if I want to keep doing it what I drive is going to have to change, or at least how it is motivated will. I am already thinking on that though I expect that it will be at least a decade before the sanctioning bodies in Australia get their heads around batteries as an energy store.
All of that said, I have a 140km round trip commute and I reckon we are one generation away from an affordable EV that will be practicable for me to use for it. The Nissan Leaf would almost do at a pinch in the generation just now released but it would have to be charged every night or I would not get the next day out of it. If I lived in the city it would be a no brainer commuter car right now.
I love Teslas, though I think the CEO keeps making rather a twit of himself, though I have my doubts about the long term future of the company. The model S P100D was exactly what was required to show the world that the G-Wiz was not the future of motoring, that a car you might actually look forward to driving was still in the frame.
First up I will say that throwing insults around at those who like motorsport is counter productive. I like motorsport, though contrary to much public opinion I am not the least bit fond of drags (Street or otherwise) street drifting, burnouts or V8 Supercars, I don't eat babies either. I can see that if I want to keep doing it what I drive is going to have to change, or at least how it is motivated will. I am already thinking on that though I expect that it will be at least a decade before the sanctioning bodies in Australia get their heads around batteries as an energy store.
All of that said, I have a 140km round trip commute and I reckon we are one generation away from an affordable EV that will be practicable for me to use for it. The Nissan Leaf would almost do at a pinch in the generation just now released but it would have to be charged every night or I would not get the next day out of it. If I lived in the city it would be a no brainer commuter car right now.
I love Teslas, though I think the CEO keeps making rather a twit of himself, though I have my doubts about the long term future of the company. The model S P100D was exactly what was required to show the world that the G-Wiz was not the future of motoring, that a car you might actually look forward to driving was still in the frame.
Let me offer you my apology Paul as everything I said was not intended to be an insult really and certainly I did not seek to insult you or others like you and really like me who enjoy a particular form of motor sport.
But it seems to me there are two groups in the world ..those who care and are mindful of waste and avoid greed and past their share consumption and those who just don't give a rat's and think they can consume all they like without consequence.
My point Simply is if we are going to stop eating babies is it not reasonable that everyone stops eating babies and those who are eating many babies should cut back first.
Again forgive me but there is a double standard thing going on and I guess I get unhinged when folk can't see the problem there.
Alex
We have a Model 3 Tesla...it is my wife’s primary errand running car.
Price wise (after US Federal and state incentives) the price was not greatly different compared to other options considered. My car can serve as long haul full family excursion vehicle.
It works a champ and is fun to drive. For errands a around town driving it is sufficient.
I was not expecting to like it and am not the primary driver of it but see a real fit for many people. At least here it is cheaper to “fill up” at a Tesla Supercharger than a tank of petrol.
Our location is not great for solar panels but would install them in a heartbeat to make a closed power loop if I could.
There is certainly plenty of room for improvement in motor sport, the issue is that it is largely driven by the same people who bemoan the lack of noise in things like Formula E. They probably had “Only milk and juice come in two litres” stickers on their cars in the mid 90’s too. And from the same source springs the more profligate forms of Motorsport like drags, which at the top level consumes more fuel to travel 1320 feet than I recently used in a whole weekend event over several hundred kilometres. That is without considering things like burnout competitions which I see less than no point in, you might as well just set fire to a paper bag full of $20 notes, it would be better for the environment.
The point of the above is really the same as laid out by a CAMS man at a car club meeting 20 years ago who said he had two “bombshells” to lay down, one being the banning of a very esoteric bit of gear that no one but the Holden Racing Team would care about as they were the only ones using them, and the other was banning the use of leaded Avgas in Motorsport, which mattered in that club as even then the cars were 40 years old and quite dependant on high lead fuels. The upshot was that the green lobby told them quite upfront that Motorsport was utterly insignificant on the grand scheme of things but public perception of people doing Motorsport as just hoons meant that as a group it was a high profile and soft target so they were going to go after it, coercion of the lowest kind.
Nothing has changed much in 20 years, including that if you call me a hoon you had better not be relying on me for a lift home. What has changes is I am older, rougher around he endures and more inclined to speak up.
I am not offended or insulted at what you wrote Alex (and others) but nowadays if I am poked a few times I do squawk.
The change to EVs will certainly happen, though in my view current crop EVs are only a short term solution - not the endgame.
Tesla have demonstrated that it is possible to build a practical family saloon which is engaging to drive and has adequate range and at a price point that is acceptable. But that’s only square one - and you still have to own one, park it somewhere, charge it, and maintain it - as well as drive it.
The big game changer will be autonomous vehicles. If you know a vehicle will be on your doorstep at the appointed time ready to go, and at journeys end you are not concerned with parking it, recharging or maintaining it, the vehicle will do those things for itself. The need to actually own one disappears.
It’s a bit like taxi fleets - only far cheaper since the driver has been removed and all the junk that goes with that.
They could even eliminate the need for trips to the local shops to buy bread and milk - order online, shopkeeper puts the stufff onboard a vehicle and it drives to you. Sounds suspiciously like Uber - minus the driver.
What’s more you could use a single-seater sports model for the commute to work, and use a big RV for hauling the family interstate on holidays. Smaller vehicles in the weekday peak periods also mean better road occupancy - ie moving more people with fewer traffic jams.
And never need to own the darn things. This also means city streets and apartments don’t need to provide so many parking spaces, as the vehicles should mostly be driving around being used.
The pieces of this puzzle are already falling into place - the software to drive the vehicle safely and reliably is the hardest part - and it will happen. Certainly within 20 years and maybe 10.
Uber is just the start. Eliminating the driver is next. And FWIW its already cheaper to use an Uber to drive your own car to work ... don’t ask me how that works financially but there it is.
As a “Driver” I don’t entirely look forward to a fully autonomous fleet, but I am not really expecting that to be in place for a couple of decades, the occasional spectacular crash of a Tesla running in mostly autonomous mode says that it is a way off yet.
But I personally do look forward to an EV being practicable for me with my longer than average commute, the issue funny enough would be getting it past my work (ironically a power distribution company) as I have a novated lease car which the company is paying me an allowance to use for work and they would reckon than an EV would not be suitable for the work role. Time will tell and the fact that Michaelia Cash was so stupefyingly wrong with her “Tradies, we won’t let them take your utes” bit before the election is on my side, give it five or so years and there probably will be an EV Ute that can practically replace the TDI one I have now. That sounds like one more lease car between me and an EV replacement.
A similar thread was running on a hunting forum and brought up lots of interesting information. Bottom line is they're great for urban use. Once you get off the beaten track you're stuffed, unless you take your own charger with you (diesel or petrol powered, of course ). And this minor inconvenience covers a lot of Australia.
BMW's i3 has a fast charging kit available for home use (4 hour charge, I think?) but it requires 3-phase power. I don't know about other States but the power company here is very reluctant to connect 3-phase power to houses unless you have a very good reason. The average person wants to be able to plug their car in at home and charge it, and they can - in 24 hours!
I'd love an electric vehicle but it's going to be a long time before they're suitable (and affordable) to suit my needs.
Alex, that has endless appeal to me. And IMO is great for development. If they can build a battery charge system that can accept the kind of regenerative braking current that thing would produce then they should be able to develop a road going version that can do the same in more extreme circumstances. How depresssing for me to cruise down Mount Pretty Sally near home every morning only for the regen system to decide half way down that it is all too much and start using friction based braking instead.
The interesting question Richard will be if you still have to say that in ten years. What gets largely forgotten in the current debate is that the fuel distribution network we now have which makes a combustion engined vehicle so convenient would have taken decades to build. It still does not entirely solve the issue for people who want to get out and way off the beaten track but IMO they are just as much of an outlier in the real world as the Motorsport enthusiast (I.E. me)
When you begin to discuss autonomy in vehicles you are getting into another kettle of fish completely.
EV or otherwise autonomous mobility is a radical game changer that will cause great change in work and leisure...
Once you have no need to own a method of transportation lots of possibilities become available. Among them widespread job displacement...you no longer need (in the USA 17 million cars built each year)...or multi lane highways and bridges, parking spots etc. It gets scary from there...
If E-Cars came with a removable battery that could be switched out in a couple of minutes we could have swap-n-go stations around the country. Like the gas bottles for BBQ's. This would solve a lot of the problems with interstate travel.
The other problem with E-Cars is the lack of revenue gov'ts receive from fuel. At what stage does the gov't start taxing E-Cars to recoup some of this lost revenue that supposedly goes to the maintenance of our roads. Should push bikes also be included.
I think it is inevitable that there will end up being a useage based charge on a lot more roads, more fuel efficient cars and the beginnings of the rise of the EV are already putting a hole in road revenue, not that they put as much of it to roads as should be the case already.
The only other way would be to work out how to tax the “fuel” which is hard when for the penalty of time taken to charge you can top up an EV from just about any 240V circuit.
If only I could afford one of those. But it'd be the only realistic option for me. Self driving cars would be better but again cost... EV are here to stay as a cash cow for a long time. Its part of consumerism addiction that revolves around lithium battery technology and why you can't pop a couple of AAs into your camera or phone or pretty much anything these days. Lithium from what I recall forms unstable compounds and the scare of public away from nickel, especially nickel cadmium based batteries poisoning etc towards lithium based tech which only overheats and sometimes explodes but performs well even in gadgets that dont require high performance energy. Plus they don't explain how once a battery "cell" is assembled the chemical reaction of lithium starts and is constant. Whether the battery is used or sitting on a shelf its life of about 5yrs is ticking away. So products are designed for a 5yr life to suit and training everyone to accept throwing away and buying the latest periodically. EV cars are no different. The batteries are the big profit earners for all industries. They make more from the consumer by forcing you to return an item for them to replace the batteries since lithium based batteries dont allow for easy identification of usage and lifespan the way nickel tech can. a simple (profitable) battery tester just shows lithium as strong charge or dead, so little drop off etc to simply test. So there is no profit in having a standard "car size" battery that you swap at the service station. You could be getting a battery with 5min of life on it. Plus it means THEY are paying for charging costs/time and disposal of dead batteries etc and maintaining a supply of batteries in the system on hand to cope with a certain number of cars per hour. Abig tank of fuel underground is still the best option. When they have a better tech that can be profitted from more then we'll get it. Don't forget nuclear based battery tech has been around for ages thanks to space exploration but the words "nuclear" and "radiactive" are such brainwashed scare tactics still they havent been able to find a way to sell it as green and cuddly to the dumb public yet. Its possible piezo (pressure to energy) and thermal (heat to energy) and kinetic (movement to energy) has or will be miniaturised enough to produce bulk layers to use in seat upholstery and clothing to turn us into batteries to power our gadgets. what makes you think any of this has anything to do with anything besides profits? doing whats best for the planet? LOL. Doing right by the tax paying public? ROFL. $top living in a fictional world folk$.
I think the best option is to genetically engineer humans with wings.
Although you would still need trucks to deliver stuff having wings would help solve personal transport issues..why is the government not working toward this..at least offer tax consessions to humans who travelled to work using their own wings.
You know Australia is one of the biggest Lithium producers in the world. We should be building battery production facilities here, and stop shipping the raw material to Tesla's big battery plants. Add value to the supply chain by producing the final product locally, then export the batteries. This creates jobs, creates new production and supply chain structure for Australia, and earns export income.
Yes but we could never import the necessary workers.
Better still refine our uranium sell it and take back the waste charging high warehouse fees.
Alex
). And this minor inconvenience covers a lot of Australia.
