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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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Wysiwyg said:
This was back in October last year. All we need is more refuelling stations but the refuelling stations need FCV's. Chicken and egg at the moment.
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Have a read of posts #297, 298 of this thread, I think hydrogen will end up being the fuel of choice, but it is a long way off.
First we need a huge increase in renewable energy, this will happen, but it will take a long time.

ATM batteries will be the goto source of power for cars, as they are easily manufactured and installed.
The problem with them long term is four fold.
They require raw materials, which are finite.
There is an issue with left over waste, when the battery is depleted, there is a degree of recycling but there will still be chemical waste.
The energy density of batteries isn't great, it is improving, but it is still a lot less than oil and H2.
The charge time is an ongoing problem for batteries, this is also improving and maybe a capacitor/battery hybrid will eventuate, until then charge time will always be an achilles heel.
 
In the cities highways are becoming clogged and no amount of expansion can keep up or stop the day when we have a total jam.

Busses, trains and more room for bike tracks are perhaps the immediate solution. Longer term we are going to be washed and blown away. The latter is not a prediction, but well underreported and it is happening now
 

Yep, the wife and I have bought a couple of electric bikes, absolutely brilliant. IMO
Now we have eight bikes, two general purpose, two serious mountain bikes, two electric bikes and two general purpose at the holiday home.
Thankfully there is no rego involved.
 

That's a problem for most of us. For the Department of the Treasury it's an opportunity called "Congestion Tax".
 
Thanks, I watched the video for Hyundai and read the article form Volvo. I don't understand how the technology isn't quite there yet but there are cars being produced with fuel cells now. It is either ready now or the cars with fuel cells are test dummy models.
 

The technology is there, but the fuel cells use platinum which is expensive, so the research is focused on finding a substitute.

It is a bit like batteries, they are trying to find more energy density and a faster charge rate.

Hydrogen fuel cells have the energy density and are quick to fill, but are expensive to produce.
Hydrogen costs heaps to make, unless you have excess renewable energy to make it. But it has the energy density a 5kg bottle of hydrogen will take you approx 600klm, and take you 3 minutes to fill.

That is why S.A has stumbled into the box seat, they blew their feet off by being too aggressive with renewable energy adoption.
But because they can rely on the interconnected grid, and the push toward renewables which include subsidies, they can capitalise on harnessing the free off peak generation to make hydrogen.

It really is a bit of a windfall for S.A, but to their credit 'necessity is the mother of invention', and they certainly have found the silver lining, to the electrical cloud that hung over their State.

IMO if they keep on this track of installing wind farms, solar farms and adjoined hydrogen plants, they will be, within 10years, the beacon of the future.

Lucky they have the Eastern State Interconnected Grid, to carry them through this phase and W.A's GST to pay for the renewables.IMO
The other advantage of hydrogen is the uses are much greater, than pumped hydro, which can only be used to make electricity at the source.

Like I've said on many occassions, it is only my humble opinion and many have poo pahed it in the past.
 
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luutzu said:
That's a problem for most of us. For the Department of the Treasury it's an opportunity called "Congestion Tax".
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Now and then we have to hear these moronic discussions around a 'congestion tax'. The idea being that more people will use public transport or carpool. The people discussing this have clearly not tried to catch a train or tram in Melbourne recently. You literally can't get on in peak a lot of the time, and when you do manage to squeeze onto a tram on a hot day....it is rancid, BO, homeless guys stinking like booze etc.

You can't pack a million people into a city in the space of 10 years, invest f all in infrastructure and then tax people for trying to get from A to B.
 
Junior said:
You can't pack a million people into a city in the space of 10 years, invest f all in infrastructure and then tax people for trying to get from A to B.
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They are treating the symptoms of rapid population group rather than the cause.
 

Yea, it take real balls to invest nothing from the revenue collected... then turn around and tax more for the problem they caused.
 
sptrawler, you keep talking about the hydrogen revolution, but I can see a couple of simple reasons why it will not occur here...

1. "Hydrogen fuel prices range from $12.85 to more than $16 per kilogram (kg), but the most common price is $13.99 per kg"
This is in California, where the cost to install a Hydrogen pump (including tank) is upward of $1.5m. All dollars are $US, so add probably 33% for here.

2. Electricity in California costs about 15-16c/Kwh for the retail customer.

3. Currently the Toyota Mirai retailed for $US57,000 in 2015, is now US$78,140 in Germany(before VAT) and has world wide sales of 5,300 units since 2015 (up to Dec '17)

Meanwhile in EV sales were over 1.1m in 2017, with the proportion of BEVs growing over hybrids to 61% of all EVs.
BEVs have economies of scale still coming, plus ongoing costs being much cheaper than Hydrogen costs. While BEVs will need battery replacements at some mileage, FCVs will need fuel stack changes and possibly metal pipe and tank changes as well.

For me the fuel for an EV will be mostly free as most use of a car is local. I have solar panels that have already paid for themselves, many people will be in a similar situation, so a high upfront cost will be offset by much lower running costs. FCVs will have high running costs relative to EVs, with an initial price tag seemingly quite high.
 
It’s a Myth that electric vehicle charging time is a problem.

1, you charge it at home while it’s parked, so you start each day with a full charge, so you never need to waste time going to a petrol station, saving about 10 - 20mins a week.

2, a full charge will get you about 4.5 hours of driving, and a 15min charge will get you another 2 hours, not many people will drive 6.5hours with out having at least a 15min break.

Most people stop for breaks (toilet, food, stretching, fuel) at least every 3hours for at least 15 a 20mins, with that drive rest cycle you could drive all day.

Your electric car range matches your biological range of you and your passenegers if you just plug it in every time you stop for a break.
 

Audi gegen Tesla - wer gewinnt das Drag Race? Seht zu, wie Jeremy Clarkson sich im Tesla gegen den Audi duelliert. Viel Spaß beim Tesla Drag Race!
 

I don't dissagree with you and I have stated, hydrogen is 30 to 50 years away, from being the ultimate solution.
Batteries will be the stop gap solution, but can you imagine the toxic residue problem, in 50 years. Also don't you think there will be a resource problem? Or do you think we will find a way to produce perpetual motion, by recycling batteries that give no waste and just as much energy as the original.
Best of luck with that idea.IMO
 

The other issue, that I find amusing is, everyone keeps talking money to produce hydrogen.
The gfc proved money is just numbers on spreadsheets, if it is only a money issue, that is a minor problem. Lol
 
explod said:
we are going to be washed and blown away. The latter is not a prediction, but well underreported and it is happening now
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People are being washed and blown away in major cities?

Which cities?
 

Boring tunnels through cities like those Musk imagined is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And to transport pedestrians and cyclists? C'on man.

It's be a whole lot cheaper, and safer, to just build tram lines. Heck, even an outdoor moving footpath would be cheaper.

Imagine tunneling deep, and you'd have to go real deep else you hit all those sewers and utilities. That mean more cost. Then there's the station and access per stop.

It's almost like asking a kid what cool stuff they want built right after a few episodes of The Jetsons. The almost is because a kid doesn't have billions of dollars attached to the idea.
 
Joules MM1 said:

Audi gegen Tesla - wer gewinnt das Drag Race? Seht zu, wie Jeremy Clarkson sich im Tesla gegen den Audi duelliert. Viel Spaß beim Tesla Drag Race!
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Jeremy got the memo since the other incident, yah?
 
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