Electric cars?

mullokintyre said:

No, on the contrary, I would probably be classed as one of the rich folk, and thus the proposals would be most advantageous to me.
But I am in a position to look after myself, pretty much regardless of what the market or the governments may do.
My concern is for the less fortunate.
I can make financial and lifestyle decisions with relative ease, but that is not the lot of many.
They are passionate and prepared to buy at almost any cost.
Your facebook group may have some battlers, but it is not representative of the OZ population, any more than ASF is, or readers of ABC news are.
So many policy decisions are made by people who will benefit from them, which unfortunately means there are many for whom there is little benefit at best, or a severe penalty at worst.
I am sorry if ithe sticking point for you is that those less fortunate than ourselves get the raw end of the deal.
mick

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i have never bought a ( brand ) new car in my life , and have no FaceBook ( or Twitter ) account i probably manage to squeak into 'middle-class ' now ( during say the last 5 years )

am much more likely to buy an EV mobility scooter than Tesla even though i could probably afford two Teslas ( and set up a public use charging facility , but i probably won't .. there will be too many regulations coming )

Australia has the opportunity to reintroduce a vehicle manufacturing facility but probably won't ( at least not a home-grown one )

another option would be EV shuttle buses , but i bet that won't catch on in the next ten years either

i think we need EVs to move people ( and goods ) but there is currently a bigger push to boost status making it likely the Asians ( including India ) will 'own ' the industry

divs4ever said:

there are PLENTY of *** starving poor eking out an existence from the scraps of middle class table. ***

and i think those $5000 urban runabouts are the perfect foothold for EVs , good for the city worker and parts of government fleets

refine and improve their way up the socio-economic ladder ( your billionaire cares if the dash is real Brazilian Walnut , most punters are just happy the dash doesn't fall off when being driven ) besides 10,000 runabouts will do more to reduce pollution than 1,000 Teslas

i prefer usability over ego-boosting ( and always have ) i DO value quality , where it improves functionality and durability

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Simple cost effective EVs are the way to go. In overall terms the rate of cost reduction has been remarkable. In fact we are now recognising just how much better value EV cars are vs ICE vehicles.

But on the bigger picture I believe we should recognise that cars have traditionally impoverished people.

The model of car manufacture has been planned obsolescence from day one. On top of that the manufacturing ethos has been about maximising after sale revenue through expensive maintenance and repair bills. If one swallows the car makers story of buying new, buying often and servicing the car religiously at the dealers the average punter would be well on the way to the poorhouse.

mullokintyre said:

No, on the contrary, I would probably be classed as one of the rich folk, and thus the proposals would be most advantageous to me.
But I am in a position to look after myself, pretty much regardless of what the market or the governments may do.
My concern is for the less fortunate.
I can make financial and lifestyle decisions with relative ease, but that is not the lot of many.
They are passionate and prepared to buy at almost any cost.
Your facebook group may have some battlers, but it is not representative of the OZ population, any more than ASF is, or readers of ABC news are.
So many policy decisions are made by people who will benefit from them, which unfortunately means there are many for whom there is little benefit at best, or a severe penalty at worst.
I am sorry if ithe sticking point for you is that those less fortunate than ourselves get the raw end of the deal.
mick

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I don’t see how lowering the cost of evs means that lower income people get a raw deal, we all breathe the same air, so more evs on the roads is good for everyone.

and as has been pointed out repeatedly, the cars filter down to the lower incomes via the used car market.

Smurf1976 said:

They do but an ICE sold in, say, 2025 isn't going to be scrapped in 2030 just because it's no longer in production.

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Not really the issue.
You keep missing the bit about what "transition" means. Like we won't be going back to coal for electricity generation because we are in transition. And even with +40year life spans coal fired power plants will mostly have disappeared well before 2040.
Next point, in Europe no FF cars will be sold after 2035. And in more and more cities diesel vehicles are being banned. Those are initiatives that were never contemplated 10 years ago, and the thing is this trend has barely started. This map is a year old, but gives you an idea of the global trend:

I would bet that by 2025 the above map will be filled mostly with blue and green.

The real issue is that NEVs will be pretty much all that's available by 2030 (battery/hydrogen availability willing) because they are already on parity with comparable size ICE vehicles, just not yet in Australia. Aside from vehicle pricing another factor that will drive the transition faster is deliberate decarbonisation policies, with or without incentives.
As a very quick aside the massive oversubscriptions for US NEV pickups has led legacy automakers to announce new offerings in order to compete with Rivian and Cybertrucks or miss the boat (which may already be the case as they are 2 years behind). In other words the pace of change is being driven by both consumer demand and a need to compete or disappear.

Smurf1976 said:

It would take a truly major fall in the price of new vehicles to make that a realistic scenario where cars are effectively disposable ...

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Not at all as the NEV market already has cars in production and on the streets costing under US$5k. What price do they need to fall to?
And why do they need to be considered disposable given that even the smallest EVs will have a battery pack that can be converted to home energy storage

Smurf1976 said:

rather than being, for most consumers, the second most expensive item they'll ever purchase (and the actual most expensive one that isn't normally an investment).

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That's a trivial point. Our home is in the $1M range but our main car cost only $35k new (less than 6 months wages), and will have a resale value contributing towards the next car purchase.
A point you keep dodging is that ICE resale values will progressively decline until they are scrap metal value only, so nobody is going to want to see that so called investment disappear down the gurgler.

We are yet to hit 2022 and we have countries like Norway with around 95% NEV sales, Germany over 30%, and the biggest car market in the world - China - at about 18% and increasing rapidly:

Value Collector said:

I don’t see how lowering the cost of evs means that lower income people get a raw deal, we all breathe the same air, so more evs on the roads is good for everyone.

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I thought I pointed out how the lower income people (LIP's) get a raw deal, but I obviously didn't do it well enough, so I will have another go.
Firstly, all the tax benefits, removal of Luxury car tax, import duties, GST, FBT etc provide very little if any benefit to the LIP's , but lots of benefits to the wealthy. It might be argued that if the initial costs of new EV's goes down, then used EV's will also go down, but that will take more than a few years to trickle down.
Secondly, the LIP's still driving around in their inefficient ICE bombs will have to buy fuel, on which they pay GST, fuel excise tax etc. The wealthy EV buyers will pay none of those, good for them.
Thirdly, due to the two things above, the governments will have forgone income from the switch to EV's.
This in itself may be a good thing, but who do you think will disproportionally affected by this drop in income?
The LIP's are far more likely to be heavily dependant on the financial assistance from governments.
So they are likely to miss out again.
All the while, those of us who can afford an EV, can sit back with our best virtue signalling smile and say look what we are doing for the environment.
I had a similar discussion with a member of my family on the weekend.
One of her responses was that all vehicles, including ICE's, should pay on a user pays system- the more miles you travel, the higher the tax you pay.
But the devil is in the detail of how you first of all measure how much travel each vehicle does, and secondly how does the payment get administered. She had no answer other than to say the government can set up schemes to administer it.
Something like the ATO set up with Robodebt I suggested?
My brother and I I then spent the next half hour thinking up ways to get around it.
Highly entertaining.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

I thought I pointed out how the lower income people (LIP's) get a raw deal, but I obviously didn't do it well enough, so I will have another go.
Firstly, all the tax benefits, removal of Luxury car tax, import duties, GST, FBT etc provide very little if any benefit to the LIP's , but lots of benefits to the wealthy. It might be argued that if the initial costs of new EV's goes down, then used EV's will also go down, but that will take more than a few years to trickle down.
Secondly, the LIP's still driving around in their inefficient ICE bombs will have to buy fuel, on which they pay GST, fuel excise tax etc. The wealthy EV buyers will pay none of those, good for them.
Thirdly, due to the two things above, the governments will have forgone income from the switch to EV's.
This in itself may be a good thing, but who do you think will disproportionally affected by this drop in income?
The LIP's are far more likely to be heavily dependant on the financial assistance from governments.
So they are likely to miss out again.
All the while, those of us who can afford an EV, can sit back with our best virtue signalling smile and say look what we are doing for the environment.
I had a similar discussion with a member of my family on the weekend.
One of her responses was that all vehicles, including ICE's, should pay on a user pays system- the more miles you travel, the higher the tax you pay.
But the devil is in the detail of how you first of all measure how much travel each vehicle does, and secondly how does the payment get administered. She had no answer other than to say the government can set up schemes to administer it.
Something like the ATO set up with Robodebt I suggested?
My brother and I I then spent the next half hour thinking up ways to get around it.
Highly entertaining.
Mick

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The “Tax benefits” would only exist to get more evs on the road, and that would Benefit everyone.

1, better local air quality in our cities.
2, better long term environmental outcomes for climate change.
3, better energy security for Australia in general (lower oil prices also)
4, a used car market populated with more Evs.

The government already spends more on healthcare related to air quality than it collects from the fuel tax, and that’s just the cash cost, not the human suffering, and the poor are the most likely to live next to highways and heavy traffic zones with poor air quality.

———————
Australia is already one of the best countrys to be poor in, low income people pay hardly any tax here compared to the government services they receive.

A person on minimum wage will not come close to paying enough tax over their life to cover the cost of all the government services they consume, they are heavily subsidised by the middle class, so I don’t think it’s the end of the world if the middle class have a vehicle tax removed, when the outcome benefits everyone down the line anyway.

basilio said:

Simple cost effective EVs are the way to go. In overall terms the rate of cost reduction has been remarkable. In fact we are now recognising just how much better value EV cars are vs ICE vehicles.

But on the bigger picture I believe we should recognise that cars have traditionally impoverished people.

The model of car manufacture has been planned obsolescence from day one. On top of that the manufacturing ethos has been about maximising after sale revenue through expensive maintenance and repair bills. If one swallows the car makers story of buying new, buying often and servicing the car religiously at the dealers the average punter would be well on the way to the poorhouse.

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I was wondering, have you bought one yet @basilio ?

mullokintyre said:

I thought I pointed out how the lower income people (LIP's) get a raw deal, but I obviously didn't do it well enough, so I will have another go.
Firstly, all the tax benefits, removal of Luxury car tax, import duties, GST, FBT etc provide very little if any benefit to the LIP's , but lots of benefits to the wealthy. It might be argued that if the initial costs of new EV's goes down, then used EV's will also go down, but that will take more than a few years to trickle down.
Secondly, the LIP's still driving around in their inefficient ICE bombs will have to buy fuel, on which they pay GST, fuel excise tax etc. The wealthy EV buyers will pay none of those, good for them.
Thirdly, due to the two things above, the governments will have forgone income from the switch to EV's.
This in itself may be a good thing, but who do you think will disproportionally affected by this drop in income?
The LIP's are far more likely to be heavily dependant on the financial assistance from governments.
So they are likely to miss out again.
All the while, those of us who can afford an EV, can sit back with our best virtue signalling smile and say look what we are doing for the environment.
I had a similar discussion with a member of my family on the weekend.
One of her responses was that all vehicles, including ICE's, should pay on a user pays system- the more miles you travel, the higher the tax you pay.
But the devil is in the detail of how you first of all measure how much travel each vehicle does, and secondly how does the payment get administered. She had no answer other than to say the government can set up schemes to administer it.
Something like the ATO set up with Robodebt I suggested?
My brother and I I then spent the next half hour thinking up ways to get around it.
Highly entertaining.
Mick

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And Mike, i hope you mentioned that fact.
A user pay system per km is another tax the poor scheme.even blind freddy would see it
Who has to travel more for work daily..from dormitory suburbs stuck in traffic jams, while the higher class jump in a uber or just do 10km to the office or golf course.
And as they now WFH 3d a week...
The more you travel in a car (or public transport) the poorer you are...

sptrawler said:

I was wondering, have you bought one yet @basilio ?

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Nuh It is certainly on the horizon but I'm still one of people who buy 10 year old cars and try and get a few more years out of them before they totally cack it.

Realistically, on my budget, I'm looking at the introduction of new cheap Tesla 2-3 years down the track. In fact it would be the only car I have ever bought new or even near new.

qldfrog said:

And Mike, i hope you mentioned that fact.
A user pay system per km is another tax the poor scheme.even blind freddy would see it
Who has to travel more for work daily..from dormitory suburbs stuck in traffic jams, while the higher class jump in a uber or just do 10km to the office or golf course.
And as they now WFH 3d a week...
The more you travel in a car (or public transport) the poorer you are...

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but if you jog or use a bicycle , you are fitter and quicker ( especially in peak hour or after the public transport 'curfew ' )

divs4ever said:

but if you jog or use a bicycle , you are fitter and quicker ( especially in peak hour or after the public transport 'curfew ' )

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well I was riding to work..but not exactly working class

mullokintyre said:

I would probably be classed as one of the rich folk, and thus the proposals would be most advantageous to me.
I am in a position to look after myself, pretty much regardless of what the market or the governments may do.
My concern is for the less fortunate.
I can make financial and lifestyle decisions with relative ease, but that is not the lot of many.
They are passionate and prepared to buy at almost any cost.

mick

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that you realise that we live in a democratic capitalist Australia with a strong socialist foundation of fairness and sharing wealth.

If you believe that moe should be done you could always offer 70% of your profits to the poor and disadvantaged in the surrounding suburbs, or even a charity or two.

That way you can live a life on a fair wage, working to help the disadvantaged and feel good about it.

Write us a report in 12 months time.

JohnDe said:

I'm not sure that you realise that we live in a democratic capitalist Australia with a strong socialist foundation of fairness and sharing wealth.

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If we really lived in a capitalist society , there would be no need for incentives.
As for a strong socialist foundation of fairness and sharing, your next sentence destroys that myth.

JohnDe said:

If you believe that moe should be done you could always offer 70% of your profits to the poor and disadvantaged in the surrounding suburbs, or even a charity or two.

That way you can live a life on a fair wage, working to help the disadvantaged and feel good about it.

Write us a report in 12 months time.

Click to expand...

mullokintyre said:

If we really lived in a capitalist society , there would be no need for incentives.
As for a strong socialist foundation of fairness and sharing, your next sentence destroys that myth.

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we have multiple safety nets, including no income tax for low wage earners, monetary assistance to families with low or no income, help for the disadvantaged, the sick and disabled, Medicare, discount medication, discounted and free transport for the unemployed the sick and the retired, a pension, and more.

Some countries are more socialist than us, and some less, regardless of the mix we are still a fair country.

There will never be a time when everyone is happy about what is given and what is taken. Humans just like a whinge, some see the negatives of that and get up and do something about it, others just point their finger thinking they are contributing.

mullokintyre said:

If we really lived in a capitalist society , there would be no need for incentives.
As for a strong socialist foundation of fairness and sharing, your next sentence destroys that myth.

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I hardly think that is true.

Pure economics is not always going to lead to the best outcomes, incentives and disincentives are part of capitalism, often it’s the only way to get capital to move in ways that have better outcomes for society, but might not always be the most economic sense for the ones we rely on to allocate the capital.

basilio said:

The cost of EVs is falling rapidly. Right now in fact the biggest and cheapest selling EV in the world is a $5000 urban runabout in China. So let's not get too excited about protestations of the starving poor eking out an existence from the scraps of middle class table.

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I agree with the point but on the other hand, that same car would almost certainly cost far more than $5k if sold in Australia as with most things.

Plus a $5k second hand ICE car has no limitation to urban use. It's entirely possible to drive pretty much anywhere in Australia in any ICE that's in good running condition whereas with an EV, only one with a reasonably long range will have that ability in practice.

Pure guesswork here, but I suspect that the battery tech for electric cars will be "good enough" when the battery tech for gardening tools (lawnmowers, line trimmers, hedge trimmers, chainsaws etc) is good enough for those.

Currently, battery chainsaws, line trimmers etc exist but they're just not as good as their internal combustion counterparts. They just aren't.

Yet.

over9k said:

Pure guesswork here, but I suspect that the battery tech for electric cars will be "good enough" when the battery tech for gardening tools (lawnmowers, line trimmers, hedge trimmers, chainsaws etc) is good enough for those.

Currently, battery chainsaws, line trimmers etc exist but they're just not as good as their internal combustion counterparts. They just aren't.

Yet.

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Surely you jest haha Thanks for the morning laugh jester

Smurf1976 said:

Plus a $5k second hand ICE car has no limitation to urban use. It's entirely possible to drive pretty much anywhere in Australia in any ICE that's in good running condition whereas with an EV, only one with a reasonably long range will have that ability in practice.

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PHEV are more economical and have excellent driving range, depending on what you want to use the car for. Your argument is akin to buying a Mini to tow a caravan. People usually buy a vehicle fit for purpose.
However, if you had to drive an EV a long way, this guy drove across Africa 3 years ago:

Or 2 years ago an even longer journey of 95000 kilometres was completed:

For normal everyday use EVs are no more constrained in use than an ICEV. And as charger stations rollout their practically over longer journeys will increase. On the other hand, if I had an EV I could drive to my niece's place at Hervey bay, recharge over night, and drive back home (600km round trip) without visiting a servo.

“EVs convert over 77 per cent of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12 per cent – 30 per cent of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels,” according to the US Department of Energy

An EV motor is around 85 - 90 per cent efficient when converting coal-fired energy to power. It’s estimated that technological improvements will see emissions from combustion engines falling by about 1.9 per cent a year through to 2040, according to Bloomberg, while EV emissions are anticipated to fall between 3 per cent and 10 per cent annually.