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Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.7%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 78 39.4%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 38 19.2%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 25 12.6%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    198
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sptrawler said:
I've done it 16 times, including twice on a motorbike, flying is a lot nicer.
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I recall that there's a few wider sections of the road marked as an airstrip.

At least that's how I recall it. Only for small planes though....
 
Smurf1976 said:
I've only done the trip twice (once in each direction) but there were definitely at least some trucks parked overnight at roadhouses.
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I haven’t done the Nullabor, but I have driven across a bit of America.

what surprised me in America was I saw trucks parked up overnight that were plugged into power sockets.

They were standard diesel trucks, but they plug into electricity to run heating and cooling while the driver sleeps, so they don’t have to run their engines.

If they are doing that they could also be charging batteries.

fast chargers could have trucks back on the roads in 30 mins (lunch and pee break)

slower chargers could charge them while the drivers shower and have a sleep for a few hours.

but yeah I think we could all agree charge times aren’t a problem when you only need 30 mins in the first 1600kms and 30mins for every 800km after that.
 
Can we just take a minute to talk about the absolute absurdity that is tesla?

It rallied ANOTHER 10% last night.
 
Value Collector said:
By the time you have a hydrogen tank + a fuel cell + a battery to capture regen you may as well just get rid of the hydrogen tank and fuel cell and just get a bigger battery.
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Don't know. I wasn't thinking of a full battery pack but rather a super capacitor or a 10kw unit that was specifically intended for absorbing and reusing regen energy. On a big truck that wouldn't amount to much and the amount of energy it could recycle would be substantial.
 
It's the charge/discharge cycles that kill batteries. Ask any tradie that uses his tools all day, then charges the batteries overnight, to then use them the next day, to then charge them the following night etc etc.

At a commercial level, like everything, they become consumables.
 
True, hopefully the memory effect will be reduced.last tesla announcement about revolutionary battery was about that with unlimited..well nearly... life
 
qldfrog said:
True, hopefully the memory effect will be reduced.last tesla announcement about revolutionary battery was about that with unlimited..well nearly... life
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The holy grail, they can't even make small ones, that fit in phones last forever.
 
over9k said:
Can we just take a minute to talk about the absolute absurdity that is tesla?

It rallied ANOTHER 10% last night.
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Yeah, I don’t own any stock yet (apart from the index).

but it has been super strong.

The thing I am struggling to figure out is whether this price is absurd or not, because they are growing into a huge business now.

So far they have 3 operational factories.

1, a Factory in Fremont California producing Model S, 3, X, Y.

2, The Giga factory in Nevada producing Batteries for Fremont factory and their power storage business.

3, Chinese gigafactory producing model 3 and batteries together for Chinese market.

+ Growth project such as

1, German gigafactory under construction that will produce vehicles and batteries for the European market.

2, New York factory that will produce their solar panels.

3, Expansions or possible second USA factory to produce Tesla Semi and Cyber Truck which already have preorders totaling years of production.

then there is some blue sky future growth, such as the eventual robo-taxi network, growth in battery storage business and other innoventions that haven’t Even been imagineered yet.

——————

So I have been following the companies for years as an interested consumer, but never bit the bullet and purchased stock, but if things go right we could be looking at the company that will dominate the future growth in the industry.

Tesla’s might eventually be the IPhone and everyone else becomes Nokia, and one of them will be Samsung.
 

maybe, but the battery would have to be pretty big to be able to absorb a big surge in power, a truck regen would be A pretty Big surge in power.

Even the regen in my Model 3 gets limited in strength until the battery is about 85%.

but I guess it’s not impossible, but as I said I think pure electrics have a lot more benefits than people think.

some people say that the big batteries will reduce cargo carrying by a certain %, but think out the hydrogen and diesel models, they have to have a whole other trucking fleet carrying their fuel ahead of them so they can refuel.
 

As far as trucks go, especially interstate, we should be concentrating on getting freight off the roads and onto the rails, and building more intra state rail networks.

Why governments concentrate on building roads not rails is not such a real mystery, it's called road transport companies donating to political parties.
 
An excellent point @SirRumpole .

And perhaps having people who cannot afford proper upmarket motors riding electric scooters.

If as many people rode scooters as they do in the Orient there would be fewer cars on the road in Australia.

gg
 

I agree with more rail freight, that’s something you notice in the USA as well, huge quantities of rail freight.

those double stacked shipping containers On huge trains look awesome winding there way through the country side, better than trucks.

Also, America’s Rails are all privately owned.
 

So I guess I'm suggesting that electrification of railways is going to have more impact on reducing fossil fuel usage than encouraging electric cars.

Of course we can walk and chew gum at the same time, but the concept of electrifying the railways hasn't had much impact in the public's or politicians minds.

Less sexy than Teslas perhaps.
 

Well we need to do both, moving a tonne on rails uses a lot less fuel per mile than a diesel truck.

Check this out, - teaching trucks to use the rail ways.

 
Value Collector said:
Well we need to do both, moving a tonne on rails uses a lot less fuel per mile than a diesel truck.

Check this out, - teaching trucks to use the rail ways.

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Great idea.

I'm sure an enlarged version would be suitable for Mr Gumnut's Arnage.
 


There's a lot of stuff following this trend, though I'd replace small & large with "online" and "bricks & mortar".

Electric cars will be no different.
 
SirRumpole said:
Or even if they took public transport ?

I'm sure they could arrange an Arnage rail car with cigar lighter for you.
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Public transport is a city centric view of the world but electric scooters as in China a freedom licence.
Hard to envisage in Australia between helmet, speed limits on ebikes and power limits on scooters which need a motorbike licence if they are to be useful for commutes
Noted that both @Garpal Gumnut and @SirRumpole like the scooter idea.
Gentlemen, you are not confusing scooters and mobility scooters are you?
Quite a frequent sight north of the Brisbane river...
 
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