[Peter Ward]

It’s amazing how opinion passes as fact with the help of a little mis-information from the fossil fuel industry ( including multinationals that are richer than many small countries, allowing them to buy their politicians..and they do) and helps to stoke old EV fears/falsehoods/prejudice.

You laugh?

Well, Scotty from marketing announced a week or so ago that Australian taxpayers (yes, that's a good slab of your wages taken as tax) would give $2.3 Billion in subsidies to prop up Australian oil refineries.

One wonders how $2.3 billion would go for the installation of a national fast EV charging network... the Libs however are duplicitous as while they apparently believe in a subsidy-free market system (well one has to be reasonable...and exclude the fossil fuel industry) .. and one certainly can't use taxpayer funds to actually encourage any EV uptake around here.

After 18 months of ownership I recently got rid of my first EV.

I now have my second EV ( being a "rich urban dwelling type" it is also a Tesla) as the new 2021 model has increased range (To be sure, Tesla lie claiming 628km....in practice it's 540km in real world driving…but advertising is full of myths).

It's still brilliant. Costs bugger all to run (I charge it with our PV panels) plus it has NO emissions. Well, the humans in it might fart/belch but that's it.

I'll be driving it to the Parkes CWAS astrofest this year. The car will easily cover the 291km distance from Sydney, but Tesla's supercharging station at Bathurst will provide a welcome coffee/tea/pee stop and allay any range anxiety plus the need to charge it while in Parkes. The round trip will likely come with a $6.40 supercharger energy bill, but my ICE car would have chewed 70 odd litres of fuel to do the same trip. Do the math with the ICE fuel of your choice. Bugger. 15x more expensive.

As for glib comments about Tesla's being glued together, they are utter rubbish: even a cursory look at their production-line welding-robots shows this is pure BS, as are other safety red herrings. The facts are that the USA's NTSB crash test results rated them has having one of the highest safety scores EVER.

Lastly for those saying they will never own an EV, with the likes of VW, JLR, Lamborghini, Volvo, Kia ,GM all going to EV only production, I predict ICE offerings will be next to nil within a decade. Battery energy densities have doubled in the past decade, hence expect a +1000km range in the next decade. BTW the batteries are recycled already to recover their Lithium and other rare earths.

Those clinging to ICE technology better get used to walking, or maybe treading water as the EV Tsunami is coming whether you like it or not. It's not like we actually have a car industry to take a contrary position.

Here's a thought. Resurrect the Australian car industry and manufacture coal powered cars.

Scotty from marketing I believe has this plan.... he'll make them in Stanley (Northern Tasmania) to lure those unreasonable tree-hugging green voters that infest the region ....and already has name for it: "The Stanley Steamer" ! (worth a Google)