Electric cars?

[sptrawler]

That’s more to do with taxi’s moving to Hybrid Technology and burning petrol rather than LPG.

Actually it is due to the difference in fuel economy, I had four cars converted to dual fuel (Mitsubishi express 84, Lancruiser 60 series 88, EA ford Fairmont 92 and a Landrover 300Tdi 97), the reason that gas is no longer a viable conversion is, the drop in fuel economy cancels any advantage in fuel cost.
As smurf said years ago LPG autofuel was less than half the cost of petrol, so a 30% drop in economy was still worth it, now I notice locally LPG is 89c and unleaded is $1.10, it is as simple as that.
The conversion cost isn't worth it and after 10 years the tank and system has to be pressure certified, so when the cost of LPG went up people didn't bother.

 

[Value Collector]

Actually it is due to the difference in fuel economy, I had four cars converted to dual fuel (Mitsubishi express 84, Lancruiser 60 series 88, EA ford Fairmont 92 and a Landrover 300Tdi 97), the reason that gas is no longer a viable conversion is, the drop in fuel economy cancels any advantage in fuel cost.
As smurf said years ago LPG autofuel was less than half the cost of petrol, so a 30% drop in economy was still worth it, now I notice locally LPG is 89c and unleaded is $1.10, it is as simple as that.
The conversion cost isn't worth it and after 10 years the tank and system has to be pressure certified, so when the cost of LPG went up people didn't bother.

My previous car was LPG, it burned about 20% more fuel, so year you need to multiple the gas price by 1.2 to get a comparable figure.

but LPG was always a “Taxi fuel”, but almost all taxis these days are hybrids.

 

[sptrawler]

My previous car was LPG, it burned about 20% more fuel, so year you need to multiple the gas price by 1.2 to get a comparable figure.

but LPG was always a “Taxi fuel”, but almost all taxis these days are hybrids.

Nearly 90% of taxis were dedicated lpg Ford Falcons, they aren't produced anymore, so the Toyota Camry hybrid has become the taxi of choice for size reliability and running costs.
But it would be wrong to suggest that the change over was made, because hybrid was a better choice, it was made because it basically became the only choice. If the Falcon was still being produced I doubt the fleet would have changed yet.
Just my opinion

 

[Value Collector]

Nearly 90% of taxis were dedicated lpg Ford Falcons, they aren't produced anymore, so the Toyota Camry hybrid has become the taxi of choice for size reliability and running costs.
But it would be wrong to suggest that the change over was made, because hybrid was a better choice, it was made because it basically became the only choice. If the Falcon was still being produced I doubt the fleet would have changed yet.
Just my opinion

I am not saying Hybrids are a better choice (although they might be, I haven’t crunched the numbers), just that now that all the taxis are hybrids burning petrol, the market for LPG has obviously shrunk, so LPG bowsers are slowly disappearing, just like petrol bowsers will as electric cars take over.

 

[Smurf1976]

That’s more to do with taxi’s moving to Hybrid Technology and burning petrol rather than LPG.

It's not just taxis though, the entire market for the fuel for automotive use has dropped just on 75% over the past decade.

That's a massive rate of decline considering that only about 50% of the vehicle fleet would have turned over during that time and anecdotally at least, there's been quite a few LPG systems ripped out of cars that have remained in use on petrol only. Once the 5 yearly inspection is due, it's just not worthwhile paying the $ given the lack of any real saving on fuel costs.

A particular problem is dedicated LPG vehicles which were still being sold just a few years ago. It's only a matter of time before they become problematic to obtain fuel for given that service stations are already moving away from selling it.

The issue of refueling infrastructure is likewise relevant to EV's and hydrogen cars. Buy either and, unless your usage is such that you can do all EV charging at home, you're basically making a bet that the infrastructure is developed and exists for the life of the car.

I'm not arguing against anything, just highlighting some issues.

 

[Value Collector]

It's not just taxis though, the entire market for the fuel for automotive use has dropped just on 75% over the past decade.

That's a massive rate of decline considering that only about 50% of the vehicle fleet would have turned over during that time and anecdotally at least, there's been quite a few LPG systems ripped out of cars that have remained in use on petrol only. Once the 5 yearly inspection is due, it's just not worthwhile paying the $ given the lack of any real saving on fuel costs.

A particular problem is dedicated LPG vehicles which were still being sold just a few years ago. It's only a matter of time before they become problematic to obtain fuel for given that service stations are already moving away from selling it.

The issue of refueling infrastructure is likewise relevant to EV's and hydrogen cars. Buy either and, unless your usage is such that you can do all EV charging at home, you're basically making a bet that the infrastructure is developed and exists for the life of the car.

I'm not arguing against anything, just highlighting some issues.

I don’t have any numbers, but it would seem to me that taxis represented a very large portion of the LPG market, especially by kilometres driven.

sure there is non taxi LPG vehicles (such as my old commodore), but one taxi would have consumed 20 times the amount of fuel I would burn, if not more.

 

[Smurf1976]

I don’t have any numbers, but it would seem to me that taxis represented a very large portion of the LPG market, especially by kilometres driven.

I don't have a further breakdown but looking at the government statistics, LPG sales are divided into "Automotive" and "Non-Automotive" uses (the latter being bottled gas for homes, industry etc).

The "Automotive" component is down almost 75% for 2019-20 as compared to 2010-11.

That's a pretty massive decline for anything to lose three quarters of its market in less than a decade. It becomes what I call a "runout technology" - that point where something is still in substantial use but there's little or no ongoing investment into it such that going to zero is inevitable.

 

[sptrawler]

I don't have a further breakdown but looking at the government statistics, LPG sales are divided into "Automotive" and "Non-Automotive" uses (the latter being bottled gas for homes, industry etc).

The "Automotive" component is down almost 75% for 2019-20 as compared to 2010-11.

That's a pretty massive decline for anything to lose three quarters of its market in less than a decade. It becomes what I call a "runout technology" - that point where something is still in substantial use but there's little or no ongoing investment into it such that going to zero is inevitable.

The Caltex service station down the road from my place, in a heavily populated area of Perth, removed the autogas tank about 6 months ago. So as you say smurf, filling will become an issue.

 

[orr]

Some quality thinking/analysis on Road user charges from the guy's at RMIT...

Think taxing electric vehicle use is a backward step? Here’s why it’s an important policy advance

Electric vehicles would lower emissions, but if their lower running costs lead to increased car use that creates a whole lot of other costs for our cities.

theconversation.com

And an easy extrapolation from the following shows the laggard nature and rear view perspective of 20 of the last 24yrs of Federal policy and the overt risk to which it now exposes us.. such is life in the provinces...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/biden-electric-cars/2020/11/25/5076e316-2e6f-11eb-bae0-50bb17126614_story.html

 

[Value Collector]

The Caltex service station down the road from my place, in a heavily populated area of Perth, removed the autogas tank about 6 months ago. So as you say smurf, filling will become an issue.

Yep, BP service stations are removing them every time they refurbish a site.

but the decline will be a jagged line, because every time a service station removes an LPG bowser, LPG sales at the remaining bowsers at other sites increases, which would give a little incentive for them to continue offering LPG at those sites.... at least for a while

 

[Value Collector]

Some quality thinking/analysis on Road user charges from the guy's at RMIT...

Think taxing electric vehicle use is a backward step? Here’s why it’s an important policy advance

Electric vehicles would lower emissions, but if their lower running costs lead to increased car use that creates a whole lot of other costs for our cities.

theconversation.com

And an easy extrapolation from the following shows the laggard nature and rear view perspective of 20 of the last 24yrs of Federal policy and the overt risk to which it now exposes us.. such is life in the provinces...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/biden-electric-cars/2020/11/25/5076e316-2e6f-11eb-bae0-50bb17126614_story.html

good luck trying to convince people this new highly visible tax is cheaper than the hidden taxes that they don’t really even think about, it’s hard enough to convince people that EV’s are a good idea even before they were taxed in such a visable way.

what I have learned is you can have all the facts and figures that prove something is a great idea, but that doesn’t mean you can over come people’s gut biases and Bro science.

As I said if the government actually cared about improving air quality in cities, reducing carbon emissions and being more energy independent they wouldn’t rush to bring in the tax until after the public opinion of EVs positives has fully sunk in, and people can understand the real economics of the situation.

 

[sptrawler]

As I said if the government actually cared about improving air quality in cities, reducing carbon emissions and being more energy independent they wouldn’t rush to bring in the tax until after the public opinion of EVs positives has fully sunk in, and people can understand the real economics of the situation.

If the Governments cared about improving air quality in cities, the first thing they would do is bring in a congestion tax, but then they would have to improve public transport.
Much easier just to tax the individual, my guess is the wheels are already in motion, to push hard toward BEV's.
So they are getting in the ground work, tax first, ask questions later.
As I said earlier, the longer they wait to introduce it, the more people it effects as more have BEV's, the more the political backlash.

 

[Smurf1976]

what I have learned is you can have all the facts and figures that prove something is a great idea, but that doesn’t mean you can over come people’s gut biases and Bro science.

I used to get quite angry about that.

Then I realised I wasn’t going to convince more than a tiny minority but there was money to be made via applying that understanding to the stock market.

 

[basilio]

I used to get quite angry about that.

Then I realised I wasn’t going to convince more than a tiny minority but there was money to be made via applying that understanding to the stock market.

Interesting perspective.. I agree in principle but I also suspect that much of the profits in the stock market comes from misinformation, often outright lies and creating false markets.

Picking high quality ideas, developed by skilled engineers/technicians and then monetised by businessmen who don't just grab all the cash for themselves and their mates sounds great. (And I do attempt to follow those directions.)

But it also seems that much easier profits are made flogging investment scams, dodgy products and quite dangerous products.

But maybe I'm being too cynical and picky ?

 

[Smurf1976]

Interesting perspective.. I agree in principle but I also suspect that much of the profits in the stock market comes from misinformation, often outright lies and creating false markets.

I see the principle more widely.

As soon as I see someone saying that EV's will have replaced petrol anytime prior to 2040, I know they haven't done the maths. Because it takes 20 years to turnover the fleet and right now in 2020 most new car sales are petrol or diesel or at most hybrids. As such, a fully electric fleet this side of 2040 is not happening period, and it's most unlikely prior to 2050 given that we'll still be selling new petrol / diesel cars for some years yet.

Or for another energy-related one, in the relatively recent past there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea that we ought switch from coal to gas for power generation. Government thought the idea was great, there was one very large company seeking to spend $ billions to dive in head first and so on.

Not this Smurf though - all I needed to do was look at the gas reserve data in order to get right what everyone from the Prime Minister to environmental groups to the CEO of said company had gotten completely wrong.

Genius? Not at all - just looking at the data, which is freely available to anyone at no cost, and spotting the fatal flaws in the idea. Can't burn gas that doesn't exist. Note the current move to now import gas to Victoria.

There are many things like that where technology advocates, governments, management of companies, all sorts of lobby groups and so on simply don't look at freely available data and find that what they're saying doesn't add up.

That tends to be an opportunity for investment.

 

[sptrawler]

The other issue of course is primary producers, the ability to change over all their machinery to electric, is not going to happen in the foresable future. The logistics of it are enormous.

 

[Smurf1976]

The other issue of course is primary producers, the ability to change over all their machinery to electric, is not going to happen in the foresable future. The logistics of it are enormous.

Where I think much gets lost is seeing it as an all or nothing proposition.

Some EV advocates will argue that pretty much everyone ought be driving an EV and that petrol will be obsolete in 10 or even 5 years.

EV detractors point to the person who does 1000km trips to the middle of nowhere towing a caravan.

In truth we're likely to see a considerable period of overlap as technology changes and that's not a problem. There's no reason why some shouldn't have an EV just because it doesn't work for everyone and so on.

Even on the same farm or in the same city's bus fleet we'll likely see a considerable period of transition. I'm told by one operator that they run buses for 25 years and that won't likely change so assuming they go electric or hydrogen at some point, they'll have quite a long transition period where they've still got diesel buses on the road too. Some already have natural gas powered buses for example but generally not for the whole fleet, it's a mix.

 

[SirRumpole]

I see the principle more widely.

As soon as I see someone saying that EV's will have replaced petrol anytime prior to 2040, I know they haven't done the maths. Because it takes 20 years to turnover the fleet and right now in 2020 most new car sales are petrol or diesel or at most hybrids. As such, a fully electric fleet this side of 2040 is not happening period, and it's most unlikely prior to 2050 given that we'll still be selling new petrol / diesel cars for some years yet.

Or for another energy-related one, in the relatively recent past there was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea that we ought switch from coal to gas for power generation. Government thought the idea was great, there was one very large company seeking to spend $ billions to dive in head first and so on.

Not this Smurf though - all I needed to do was look at the gas reserve data in order to get right what everyone from the Prime Minister to environmental groups to the CEO of said company had gotten completely wrong.

Genius? Not at all - just looking at the data, which is freely available to anyone at no cost, and spotting the fatal flaws in the idea. Can't burn gas that doesn't exist. Note the current move to now import gas to Victoria.

There are many things like that where technology advocates, governments, management of companies, all sorts of lobby groups and so on simply don't look at freely available data and find that what they're saying doesn't add up.

That tends to be an opportunity for investment.

We are the largest gas exporter in the world, the gas exists it just gets shipped overseas and we have to buy it from somewhere else for our own needs.

Not that I see gas as a replacement for coal. The main work will be done by renewables plus storage with gas power stations there in case of long periods of unfavourable weather.

Which is why governments will have to build them, private enterprise doesn't invest in assets that lay dormant for long periods of time.

But gas turbine plants don't have to run on gas, they could use hydrogen or ethanol from sugar cane. And if they are infrequently used then the drain on the gas fields should be small.

We just need to build enough gas storage to store sufficient quantities to satisfy the infrequent use they will be put to.

 

[Smurf1976]

We are the largest gas exporter in the world, the gas exists it just gets shipped overseas and we have to buy it from somewhere else for our own needs.

We export gas from Qld, NT and WA.

There's stuff all left in the "traditional" sources supplying the combined region of NSW, ACT, Vic, SA and Tas.

The idea of a mass switch from coal to gas in Victoria for baseload generation that I was commenting on always was going to require some combination of coal seam gas from NSW, long distance pipelines across the country or imported LNG - none of which are cheap enough for the idea to stack up.

Therein lies my point - classic case jumping on the bandwagon whilst failing to grasp what such a plan really involved. No surprise that in due course the idea quietly disappeared.

Same logic applies in both directions. There's plenty who are dismissing the role of EV's on the grounds that they do have limitations but are failing to grasp that those limitations aren't relevant to everyone. For a company car that's parked at the office for considerable periods and which never goes out of the city, and EV leaves petrol for dead if for no reason other than the ease of fueling it.

In all this energy and transport stuff I think much detail gets lost. What works on the energy supply side in Queensland is different to Victoria. What works for a company car based in the city is different to what works for someone who frequently drives long distances. Etc. There's a lot of detail in it all, there's no single answer to most of it.

Even for a user like government, what works for a car used by office or technical staff to get between sites is very different to what's required of a marked police car or ambulance for example.

 

[sptrawler]

Like you say @Smurf1976 , it is the all or nothing, black or white mentality that is dominating everything at the moment, it doesn't allow for sensible debate.
The worst part is the media fuel it all the time.