Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.8%

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

    Votes: 78 39.6%

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

    Votes: 37 18.8%

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

    Votes: 25 12.7%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    197
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sptrawler said:
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.
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Power walls can send power back to the grid, you just have to program what conditions you wish them to do that in, or like agl does they can be controlled by a third party.

If you have a solar power and a power wall battery and are part of AGL’s virtual power plant they will pay you 16cents for any power you send them from your solar or your battery, and they will sell you unlimited power back at 16cents.

So your buy and sell is exactly the same, so it basically turns your power wall into an unlimited sized battery for your solar system.

obviously AGL will take the power from your battery when they can sell it at a high price, and then choose whether to take your solar or charge the battery when it suits them at low prices, but from your end you get to have 100% of your solar regardless of times of day without the price difference in buy sell
 
Value Collector said:
Power walls can send power back to the grid, you just have to program what conditions you wish them to do that in, or like agl does they can be controlled by a third party.
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To expand on that - the third party is in practice overriding the Powerwall's own process of matching output with house load. That is, changing its output to something other than what it would naturally be.

If communications fails for whatever reason - the Powerwall just defaults back to operating as a self-contained system, it doesn't stop altogether. :2twocents
 
I would have thought it would just literally be on an on/off peak timer?
 
sptrawler said:
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.
Click to expand...
More on some of the issues I was talking about, in this article:
reneweconomy.com.au

Jemena to lead wall charger trial to allow networks to control home EV charging

Jemena is to lead a trial of “smart wall chargers” across three states to test how networks can “dynamically” manage charging of electric vehicles at home.
reneweconomy.com.au reneweconomy.com.au
From the article:
Jemena is to lead a trial of “smart wall chargers” across three states that will test how networks can “dynamically” manage charging of electric vehicles at home according to supply and demand.

The $3.4 million trial will involve more than 170 households across Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania, and the network companies AusNet Services, Evoenergy, TasNetworks and United Energy. It is one of a number of “trials” being run across the country to test how EV charging fits into the transitioning grid.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will pay $1.6 million towards a program that tests “smart” electric vehicle charging technology that is faster than standard home chargers and responsive to grid demand.

​

 
sptrawler said:
More on some of the issues I was talking about, in this article:
reneweconomy.com.au

Jemena to lead wall charger trial to allow networks to control home EV charging

Jemena is to lead a trial of “smart wall chargers” across three states to test how networks can “dynamically” manage charging of electric vehicles at home.
reneweconomy.com.au reneweconomy.com.au
From the article:
Jemena is to lead a trial of “smart wall chargers” across three states that will test how networks can “dynamically” manage charging of electric vehicles at home according to supply and demand.

The $3.4 million trial will involve more than 170 households across Victoria, the ACT and Tasmania, and the network companies AusNet Services, Evoenergy, TasNetworks and United Energy. It is one of a number of “trials” being run across the country to test how EV charging fits into the transitioning grid.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will pay $1.6 million towards a program that tests “smart” electric vehicle charging technology that is faster than standard home chargers and responsive to grid demand.

​

Click to expand...
One issue i see is the battery designers want to build batteries for continuous charging when parked then discharge during drive aka charge under temp.etc settled along a few hours with usually multi phase charging to extend life of the battery and components.
Once hooked to the grid as a 2 way system,your battery could see itself switching quickly fron charge discharge ,and even if this was controlled somewhat,would not to say will be subjected to more cycle and so shorten life
Which we can summarise as: the EV ownerss suckers will destroy their battery to benefit the grid and will be taxed for it :)
Considering the battery cost in an EV,not something to discard
 
SirRumpole said:
Federal government being dragged into an electric car future.


Just a "discussion paper", will they follow it through ?

www.abc.net.au

End of the 'war on the weekend' or beginning of an auto revolution? Government shifts on electric cars

It's two years overdue and the details were leaked months ago, but the Federal Government has finally released its plans for supporting electric vehicles.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au
Click to expand...
It isn't a case of will they follow through, we import cars and the world's car makers are changing over from ICE to BEV, so it is a case of we will have to transition to BEV's that's all that will be available.
What Australia doesn't want to do, is pour billions of taxpayers money, into infrastructure that becomes obsolete in 4 years time.
Investigating the best charging architectures and which equipment works the best with a smart grid, is far more important IMO, than giving taxpayer subsidies to increase uptake of BEV's when the manufacturers haven't agreed on a standard.
ATM it is like the early days of mobile phones and every phone had a different charger and charging voltage, eventually they had to standardise on micro usb, which made it all so much easier.
Currently a lot of BEV manufacturers are using different plugs, different voltages etc.
I'm sure the international auto regulatory body will demand a standard is decided on, similar to what happened with engine management and OBD2 protocol:
  • 1996: The OBD-II specification is made mandatory for all cars sold in the United States.
  • 2001: The European Union makes EOBD mandatory for all gasoline (petrol) vehicles sold in the European Union, starting in MY2001 (see European emission standards Directive 98/69/EC[3]).
  • 2004: The European Union makes EOBD mandatory for all diesel vehicles sold in the European Union
  • 2006: All vehicles manufactured in Australia and New Zealand are required to be OBD-II compliant after January 1, 2006.
Until the standards are finalised, we may well be putting in equipment that, the car manufacturers decide isn't the one they agree on.
So IMO as we don't produce cars here, to steam ahead of the game would be dumb as.
All we need ATM is basic charging infrastructure, this is being rolled out by the private sector and the States and seems like the best plan to me at this point.
www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au

Media statements | Western Australian Government

Media statements
www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au

China, which is the biggest market for BEV's in the World, are probably going to be the ones who decide what charging architecture is adopted IMO.
So a wait and see approach is the best IMO, usually we adopt the look at us and try to lead the World, maybe we have outgrown our inferiority complex and are taking a more measured approach? Who knows.

Do All Electric Cars Use the Same ‘Universal’ Plugs and Chargers? - Get Green Now

The world of EVs is rapidly changing, but I’ve done some research and compiled everything I’ve learned about EV charging into this article, up-to-date for 2020. So, do all electric cars use the same ‘universal’ plugs and chargers? In short, all electric car brands in North America use the same...
get-green-now.com get-green-now.com
From the article:

Charging Into the Future​

As the electric vehicle revolution continues to roll on, it is important to remember that the technology related to charging these vehicles is always improving. That means that, in a few short years, some of the growing pains consumers currently experience will likely be addressed – from the lack of a standardized charging mechanism to the amount of time it takes to fully charge an EV battery. The return on your investment in an electric vehicle is likely to only increase in the very near future.
 
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Australian company Tritium has done some deals working with ChargePoint and IONITY which shows some move towards common standards. Thankfully Toyota hasn't jumped in to BEV and focused more on hybrid so less variety on how companies do it all
 
They'll make adapters. Think about using foreign electronics in different countries' wall sockets/powerpoints.

This is a non-issue.
 
fiftyeight said:
Haha I love this guy.

He does a good job at summarising the technical, political and practicality of EVs

Click to expand...


The funniest part about the video is that he is a petrol head, that finally realises now that EV’s are better and more convenient, however he still doesn’t want to think of himself as being part of the EV crowd that like the environmental benefits, so he builds a strawman argument against the non existent EV environmentalists that think EVs are carbon negative.

EV owners don’t think that just because they use an EV that their entire life becomes fossil fuel free and carbon neutral, so his whole rant about that is silly.
 
Geely to offer to build E.V's for other manufacturers.

au.news.yahoo.com

Manufacturer for hire: China's Geely sets out to become a force in electric cars

Like many others in his industry, Geely Chairman Li Shufu has been irked by skyrocketing valuations for electric car manufacturers such as Tesla Inc and Nio Inc, sources at the Chinese automaker say. Getting Geely, which owns Volvo Cars and 9.7% of Daimler AG, to a place where it too may claim...
au.news.yahoo.com au.news.yahoo.com
 
Looks like the oil companies are in the market for change, this should encourage the private companies to get a move on, if they want a part of the BEV charging business.
www.drive.com.au

Shell buys out Ubitricity, a major British charging network

Neither company has revealed the monetary value of the deal
www.drive.com.au www.drive.com.au
From the article:

Royal Dutch Shell – the world’s fourth largest oil and gas company – has announced its acquisition of British public electric vehicle charging network Ubitricity.​

Neither company has revealed the monetary value of the deal, however, in an official statement released last week, Shell confirmed it was expecting to complete the take-over by the end of 2021.
According to Ubitricity's website, the company currently owns and maintains approximately 2700 on-street charge points throughout Britain.
Founded in 2008, the company is partially owned by automotive manufacturer Honda.
Shell said of the agreement: "This acquisition marks [our] expansion into the fast-growing on-street EV charging market and will provide critical competencies, helping us to scale our overall [electric vehicle] charging offer."

The oil giant claims it is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050.
 
Value Collector said:
The funniest part about the video is that he is a petrol head, that finally realises now that EV’s are better and more convenient, however he still doesn’t want to think of himself as being part of the EV crowd that like the environmental benefits, so he builds a strawman argument against the non existent EV environmentalists that think EVs are carbon negative.

EV owners don’t think that just because they use an EV that their entire life becomes fossil fuel free and carbon neutral, so his whole rant about that is silly.
Click to expand...

Any comments on the child labour issue ?

www.ft.com

Congo, child labour and your electric car

Informal workers produce almost a third of the country’s cobalt. Can mining groups address the problem?
www.ft.com www.ft.com

www.theguardian.com

Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

Dell, Microsoft and Tesla also among tech firms named in case brought by families of children killed or injured while mining in DRC
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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