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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
Jump to new
Well it hasn't taken long, i don't think we will need incentives, it is going to happen quicker than anyone expects IMO.

First BYD Han electric sedan lands in Australia ahead of consumer launch

First BYD Han electric sedan arrives in Australia ahead of launch of new direct-to-consumer EV buying project in February.
thedriven.io
From the article:
The first BYD electric sedan has arrived in Australia ahead of the launch of a new direct-to-consumer EV buying project to be launched in February.

In a post on LinkedIn on Friday the Australian arm of the Chinese EV and battery maker BYD, which has the backing of US billionaire Warren Buffet, posted an image of the recently imported Han EV which it says will have 605km driving range and use the company’s new Blade battery it first unveiled in March 2020.

Sitting at the wheel of the Han is Luke Todd, CEO and founder of TrueGreen, a company that has a big vision for electromobility in Australia including EVDirect which plans to import four BYD models using a manufacturer-to-consumer model that will cut out the middle man, aka car dealer.

With EV Direct to be launched imminently, the Han with its 180kW electric motor and ability to go from 0-100km/hr within 3.9 seconds is the first off the ranks for those after more choice on Australia’s limited EV market.

“For those that love their cars, I drove this on a private road yesterday and hands down this is the best EV in Australia at the moment. Nothing else comes close.”

TrueGreen is an umbrella group encompassing electric bus company Nexport, Gemilang coaches, electric taxi company EVTaxiCo and electric boat company Impact Boats.
 
Don't get me wrong here Trawler, the more EV's on Australian tarmac the better, particularly when they're 'hands down the best'.
But square this circle for me from the above;

"Sitting at the wheel of the Han is Luke Todd, CEO and founder of TrueGreen, a company that has a big vision for electromobility in Australia including EVDirect which plans to import four BYD models using a manufacturer-to-consumer model that will cut out the middle man, aka car dealer."

Why is the purchaser of a BYD vehical buying from TrueGreen(wash)... At this point it should be noted that a major investor in TrueGreen(wash) is Nick Politis. Nick funnily enough makes his money a car dealer.
Anything that plays off a relation ship with the NRL needs to kept a close eye on...

Interestingly (imo); A couple of days back from the same esteeming(turd) organ above quoted was this peice as a bit of insight to current Federal EV(non) Policy...

Scott Morrison test drives an electric truck, but can't find EV policy button

Scott Morrison drives an electric truck. Did it ruin his weekend?
thedriven.io

no spell check; couldn't GAF...
 
Good find SP. There is another article from Which Car that adds some salient points. Seems as if this will be very competitive with the Tesla 3 .
I am surprised it has taken so long for BYD to sell in Australia. They have been the forerunner for EV vehicles in China for a number of years.

BYD Han sedan, Tang SUV: Chinese Tesla rivals lands in Australia | UPDATE: Available for presale in 2021

BYD shows off the Han EV in Sydney ahead of it going on presale with its Tang SUV sibling in July
www.whichcar.com.au
 
Hey @Value Collector , can this incorporate your Tesla model 3? full grid integration is the answer for electric cars IMO.
If they can be integrated to charge or discharge as required, it will be nirvana for Australian adoption of BEV's, solving two problems with one answer beautiful. ?

First Look: Tesla Inverter Installed on 10.20 kW Solar System & Exclusive Photos

In mid-January 2021 Tesla has introduced a new product that has become a logical and irreplaceable addition to the product line from its Tesla Energy division - Tesla Solar Inverter. The first installations using the new equipment have already begun.
www.tesmanian.com
 
Not yet, but Elon has spoken about it, so I think it is on the cards eventually.

I think you are right with using the car batteries to power your home, I mean cars represent a lot of capital that just sits round for many hours each day, it’s just another way you can be getting value out of that capital and making the car pay for its self faster.
 
The big thing is, the BEV, is a huge grid connected battery, that can really help us move to renewable generation.
The real issue is getting it right, you cant have car batteries flat when the owner needs it, you cant have all the car batteries charged when the grid needs it.
How they integrate that is going to be the key issue, everyone throwing in chargers is great, but in reality it needs to be really well thought out, before a national policy is adopted.
Charging isnt really an issue, because the power flows one way, so you just regulate the maximum demand on the charger.
When the power flows both ways it becomes a real issue, because then it affects system frquency and stability.
So I would think this whole vehicle to grid transition is required, but has to be taken with baby steps, it is the key to BEVs being adopted, but it is a really dangerous and new way of running a power system.
A BEV, is a really small insignificant component, connected to a very powerful grid.
One car blows up and it puts everything back five years IMO.
Or if the grid sucks a 90kw/hr Tesla battery flat, the owner will be just as pizzed.
It is ok for the manufacturer to say our car is suitable for grid connection, but the electrical authorities have to be double sure it is.
Two way flow is required, but some form of standard AI is going to be required, or a smart charger.
Just my thoughts
 
Last edited:
sptrawler said:
It is ok for the manufacturer to say our car is suitable for grid connection, but the electrical authorities have to be double sure it is.
Click to expand...
My house will be subject to a planned power interruption, whole working day, a few days from now.

During that time my own power generation will run islanded and so there's no major impact, my house still has electricity within the limits of the system. Just can't bring any more in from the grid and can't export anything to it but so long as consumption remains within capacity then it works.

Now I'm sure you understand all too well that if this wasn't done strictly by the book, if electricity did flow from my property to the grid during this time, then it could very well kill someone and I mean really, actually kill them.

This is the kind of thing that can be done but has to be 100% right when it comes to generation (discharging an EV's battery into the grid is generation in this context) because anything even slightly less ends very badly. It's an area where a "hard" engineering approach is required and the network operators will demand proof.

Do it properly though and, well I'm pretty sure that people would be more than happy to power their home from their car during a supply outage.
 
Yes smurf, the media, companies with skin in the game and those with vested interests keep pushing for tax payers money.
When in reality we are in the very early stages of integrating all this crap.
 
Seeing it from the IT side, it is a nightmare and so many thing can go wrong
You have to have an orchestra maestro on the national level dealing with multiple states and multiple retail companies each with their own plans which are going to deal themselves with individual car systems,each currently speaking their own proprietary languages,technologies,limits and conficting needs.
Being a liberal capitalist at heart..i mean real liberal, not socialist, i see the only solution as a $ based one: a free market where the $ value of power connected to these BEV would drastically change within seconds and act as the regulator turning bev into source then consummer based on car owners choices (programming of bev 2ways unit)
I would call it the ant or bee hive model, distributed, independent nodes acting in unison.still need a bit of standardisation but software adaptor interfaces can be relatively easily built
Still requires high level planning in term of global availability.we still need to produce some background power,have overall sizing etc

But this becomes a political issue and i believe a top down policy with its well rehearsed issues and blackouts is the only one politically able to be sold in our woke days,so we will fail lamely.
Imagine my $based solution
Aka in the ABC or today tonight
it is unfair that this car owner is making a fortune here whereas the same car owner in another suburb is paying a fortune to charge his battler's Tesla. Just because of their position in the grid?
You would be amazed at how politics actually influence technical choice.
So expect the worst once we reach critical mass.
 

You can just have the owner of the EV set what the minimum charge level the car is allowed to go to.

for example, if you knew you needed 50% of your charge for your daily commute, you could set the car to never let the grid withdraw below the level of 60%.
 
The car isnt the problem, the issue is the charging equipment has to be able to handle two way flow and work in unison with all the other chargers, or they will melt down.
The car is just the battery, the charger will have to be a charger and an inverter that can control discharge rate etc. It is going to be very interesting and we are at the very beginning of the journey.
 
Tesla already have the Powerwall product, and other home and grid connected battery products, I am sure its not to difficult for them to manage, I mean their products are already being utilised in AGL's virtual power plant program here in Australia.

I think Tesla will get around to it.
 
over9k said:
Don't they already have the powerwall though?
Click to expand...
Yes they do, I haven't looked into it, but I doubt they work in unison with other charger/inverters, that is when a power failure happens the power wall probably islands itself and runs that house.

The issue that i'm talking about is when the cars are being used as storage for the grid, which is a whole different concept, in that situation the cars would stay connected to actually maintain grid security.
That is a massively complex scenario and actually may not happen, but my guess is it is being investigated as it would make a massive difference to how much storage the Government and industry will have to install.

The other issue is what smurf alluded to in post #3,269 above.
 
What I was saying was, isn't that what the powerwall already does?

It seems like a great idea to me, charge it off-peak, discharge during peak, save some cash?
 
On the AC power side, ultimately all generators (technically not the right term but it's the layman's one so I'll use it) are in parallel.

All generators feed into the grid and all loads draw from it regardless of scale or location on the grid. Your 5kW solar inverter at home is indeed working in parallel with Loy Yang power station - a massive scale difference but they're both generating into the grid.

Same on the load side. Your iPhone charger drawing all of 5 Watts is ultimately just another load in parallel with all the rest. At the other end of the scale spectrum, heavy industry is just a much larger load on the same system.

Fail to keep that in balance and it ends with a frequency deviation and system collapse, a situation which can unfold from start to outright collapse in a matter of seconds in the worst case. Has happened before, most Australian states have had at least one incident sometime in the past, and there's been a few near misses in recent years that have raised eyebrows that's for sure.

Doing all that via distributed generation is doable as such, just needs a suitable control system to make it work.

In saying that, the public internet is nowhere near fast or reliable enough to use as the sole basis of control. Part of the basis for it could be done that way but it's not up to the task of being the sole basis. There needs to be some inherent built-in control logic which maintains safe operation in the event that communications is lost nothing that simply shutting down is not an acceptable response and even simply maintaining the last status isn't a good one either.

FWIW there was an actual very recent operating incident where SCADA visibility of generator outputs was indeed lost. Happened on 24 January this year in the afternoon and affected the whole system. Also happening that afternoon was failure of three transmission lines in SA due to bushfire and also a lack of any significant reserve generating plant available in that state.

The lights stayed on because as it turned out power station operators do indeed know how to fly manually whilst blindfolded. Thank heavens - could've taken down the whole system otherwise.

Needless to say, someone at home with an EV won't be doing that so the control logic needs to be inbuilt and failsafe - that means "keep driving at highway speed whilst blindfolded just don't run off the road or into anything" sort of failsafe, it doesn't mean just stop or pull over, that's not an option - the show must go on regardless, stopping is not a failsafe when doing so causes collapse. That's the tricky bit to get right - making sure that flying blindfolded works well enough.

To that end I'll note that there's quite a bit of concern about the existing fleet of grid-connect solar inverters. Some behave nicely under adverse conditions, some most certainly don't, and there's enough of them now in some states to cause a major issue if they don't play nicely together. Tests are being done both under lab conditions and with field observations and manufacturers are having the gun pointed firmly at their head where necessary.

It can be done, it just needs proper design and actually doing it. That means proper technical standards and rigid compliance. Manufacturers can innovate all they like on the "how" aspect but when it comes to the "what" bit, that needs to be identical across the fleet and absolutely predictable.

Perhaps worth mentioning that so far as is known, South Australia does at times have a higher proportion of supply from distributed inverter-based generation than any other substantial power system in the planet. So we have the test case right here in Australia so far as doing this sort of thing is concerned. Just need to keep the politicians well clear.......
 
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