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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
Value Collector said:
I would imagine that installing some power infrastructure is no more difficult than installing new underground fuel tanks, which has to be done every so often at a fuel station.
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First, all the fuel companies will be able to work out the cost benefit of installing chargers at their present service stations as they can get a price to install the necessary site infrastructure before making a decision.
Second, the charging habits of drivers will be significantly different for BEVS than for ICEVs. That is, the number of service stations in metro areas may not need to be as large as it presently is for ICEVs as the majority of NEV drivers will mostly overnight charge at home.
Thirdly, and a "however," the very nature of charging stations is different in that a vehicle may be parked up to an hour to get fully charged. So the size layout should be different, as an example:

During the transition to NEVs it will be interesting to see how many existing service stations survive, and where they survive. As it stands the large BP style service stations that integrate around a dozen food and drink outlets along highway routes look like being easily reconfigured to accommodate large numbers of NEVs.
My Car, who will be servicing BYDs, has undertaken to progressively roll out charging stations at all their major shopping centre locations.
 
Yes @rederob as you say many of the charge stations will be outside towns on major transport routes, where land is cheaper, access is easier and convenience factor will be greatest, plus they will have the best exposure to passing traffic.
I would think a lot of residential style servos in use today wont be viable, due to limited footprint size and cost to upgrade the existing services.
Below is an aerial view of a new servo that has been built, midway between Mandurah and Pinjarra in W.A, the photo isn't overly recent as another one with a very similar layout is positioned on the same side of the road and about 400m along, the vertical lines you can see to the right of the servo are main 330Kv transmission lines from the SW to Perth.
The location is also ideal for people travelling from the SW to Perth, from this point to Perth is about 70Klm, it also has great access from either the SW Hwy and the Forrest Hwy.

 
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This EV charger prototype could make installation rollout much faster and easier

Tech giant Siemens and Vancouver, BC-based green building firm Nexii just debuted the VersiCharge XL, a turnkey electric vehicle charging prototype that can be installed in just a few days. Siemens says it can charge large numbers of EVs using either level 2 or 3 chargers.

The VersiCharge XL is a concept charger that was developed in late 2021 and then installed in three days at Siemens in Peachtree Corners, Georgia.

Siemens created it using Nexii’s building material Nexiite, which has comparable properties to concrete, but with a lot less embodied carbon. The weather-resistant, vertical Nexiite structures house Siemens Sentron Busway Systems, which are power delivery solutions that connect to power the EV chargers.

Siemens claims it’s the first EV charging system to house all necessary electrical infrastructure components that power EV chargers in an above-ground, enclosed, and low-carbon structure.

And because it’s an all-in-one solution, installation will cause minimal disruption to existing parking lots by eliminating costly, time-consuming civics works and reducing onsite construction waste and environmental impact.

It’s designed to be installed anywhere from small office-building parking lots to last-mile logistics hubs to stadium parking lots.

 
What will be the percentage increase,
in daily grid supply charge, to cover the necessary infrastructure upgrades?

All the e-Cars plugged in at night, in the leafy suburbs.

Will petrol/ diesel car owners, and pensioners/ Centrelink clients, and the Woolies and Aldi supermarkets, be forced to pay this. ..Of course they will.

$3 NZD plus for petrol in the Shaky Isles, and they're worried it will go to $4 NZD.. It's called economic coercion..
 

How much oil & fuel does Australia produce for our needs?
 
I
JohnDe said:
How much oil & fuel does Australia produce for our needs?
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We could produce much more , JohnDe ..we are one of the most energy-resource rich countries on the globe.
We just need to approve the projects and further exploration.

In 2022, intermittent energy only favours authoritian governments. Ask the Ukraine. Or Germany. And Russia.

However I'll be glad to pay a premium for electricity supply, and petrol ..so that Rederob can signal Planet-Saving Virtue , in the $50k+ e-Car ..which pensioners can't afford btw.

Unleaded $2:00 (plus) AUD per litre btw, east NSW, 13 March 2022.
 

Australia has never had enough quantity of the correct type crude to produce all of our fuel requirements

Domestic oil production is not currently sufficient to meet Australia’s total demand for fuel, even if all of it was refined domestically. A lot of production is condensate (a very light crude and by-product of national gas production). While it could be processed into fuel in an emergency, it is typically not considered commercially viable. As a result, most of Australia’s refined fuel products are either directly imported or refined from imported crude oil feedstock​

Australia is reliant on overseas oil, and spoilt by cheap fuel. It looks like those days are changing.

Oil refineries and fuel security

Less than one month after provision was made in the 2020–21 Budget for the design and implementation of a market mechanism to support domestic refineries, BP Australia announced it would cease fuel production at its Kwinana Refinery. Once this refinery is wound down over th
www.aph.gov.au
 
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Logique2 said:
What will be the percentage increase,
in daily grid supply charge, to cover the necessary infrastructure upgrades?
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It will be an absolute boon for the grid as daytime charging will give the PV farms an opportunity to sell the electricity for a profit, rather than lose money as sometimes occurs - see some of @Smurf1976's post in "the future of energy generation & storage" thread.
Logique2 said:
All the e-Cars plugged in at night, in the leafy suburbs.
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When little energy is being consumed - so a good opportunity for wind farms to sell electricity.
Logique2 said:
Will petrol/ diesel car owners, and pensioners/ Centrelink clients, and the Woolies and Aldi supermarkets, be forced to pay this. ..Of course they will.
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Not a good guess. Tesla gets nothing from anyone except people who buy their cars, so the company has paid for its rollout.
However, grateful if you can show where you got your idea from.
Logique2 said:
$3 NZD plus for petrol in the Shaky Isles, and they're worried it will go to $4 NZD.. It's called economic coercion..
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One thing about the price of electricity is that it is actually getting cheaper.
Lots of us are now running the numbers on car ownership and even with no availability of BEVs under $44k at the moment (plus on roads) it's still going to save us more than buying an ICEV equivalent.
 
The UK -

Analysts believe there is now a significant threat that diesel will have to be rationed. Sales of new diesel vehicles have fallen in recent years but there are still 12 million diesel cars on the road, and the haulage industry relies on it.​
​
the North Sea, which has been the mainstay of our energy industry since the 1980s, is in decline. Only half the gas we use today is produced domestically, with the rest piped in from Norway or shipped from the Middle East and US. “We’ve only really been self-sufficient for gas in two periods,” said Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). “Once was in the 1970s, when everything was nationalised and British Gas would turn the taps on and off to meet demand. And then in the 1990s, when the markets were liberalised and there was a huge upsurge in drilling to meet all that demand.”​
​
Since then, however, much of our gas has been used up. Some 45.9 billion barrels of oil and gas have been extracted from the UK continental shelf since exploration began. Nobody knows how much is left, but the Oil and Gas Authority estimates there were just 4.4 billion barrels of “proven and probable” oil and gas remaining at the end of 2020. Of that, 1.3 billion barrels were gas, enough for roughly three years of domestic demand.​

 
Logique2 said:
In 2022, intermittent energy only favours authoritian governments. Ask the Ukraine. Or Germany. And Russia.
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Every nation in the world is installing Solar PV, especially the poorest as it's so cheap, so that's another fail on your part. However the UK has the greatest capacity of intermittent generation on a per capita basis, and it's a Constitutional Monarchy.
Logique2 said:
However I'll be glad to pay a premium for electricity supply, and petrol ..so that Rederob can signal Planet-Saving Virtue , in the $50k+ e-Car ..which pensioners can't afford btw.
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Two more errors on your part. I am in my 7th year of retirement and my EV cost is set out below:

Logique2 said:
Unleaded $2:00 (plus) AUD per litre btw, east NSW, 13 March 2022.
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Charging my BEV off peak at home will cost about $25 for 1000km.
In the first 12 months I believe I won't have to pay any vehicle service costs due to the low mileage I typically drive.
 
sptrawler said:
Slashing the fuel excise won’t do anything to help this plan become reality.
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On one hand I agree fully.

On the other hand I do have concerns about the impact of current fuel pricing on those less well off.

Petrol (91) and diesel both cost 221.9 at my nearest service station at present. For me that's a bit "yeah, whatever" since I'm not using much of it and can afford the price but I can see that for some it's going to be a very real issue when added to other consumer prices also rising.

I think the whole issue needs to be looked at really. Starting with the most fundamental of the lot - why do roads cost what they do in the first place? I say that being aware of some rather "interesting" discrepancies, things that cost triple in one place what they do in another , so I don't think that just paying whatever it costs and levying excise to fund it is really the right way. A deeper look at the whole question is warranted in my view. There's no point turning up the bath taps if you haven't put the plug in.
 
Your point about domestic oil production is noted JohnDe. So let's have some more domestic oil and gas exploration.

With EVs, well I won't be driving a car powered by Uygher slaves in China.

Solar panels made in China, these are the solar panels powering our EVs. And battery and EV panel disposal afterwards, in 20 years time? All those toxic chemicals and rare earths.. Coming to a landfill near you..
"Ant-slavery.org

Report exposes solar panel industry Uyghur forced labour links

Anti-Slavery International reports on the global solar panel industry's Uyghur forced labour ties - and on what needs to be done.
www.antislavery.org

Report exposes solar panel industry Uyghur forced labour links

Anti-Slavery International reports on the global solar panel industry's Uyghur forced labour ties - and on what needs to be done.
www.antislavery.org

Today, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have publisheda report which concludes that almost the entire global solar panel industry is implicated in the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples.."
 
Logique2 said:
Your point about domestic oil production is noted JohnDe. So let's have some more domestic exploration.
Click to expand...

Australian governments and industry has explored this country for heavy crude suitable for fuel production for 100 years, we do not have it.
 

Countries like Australia have made rogue nations rich by our dependence on their oil.

We have enough alternative energy sources to meet our needs. EV's and battery technology has reached a point were we can now start weening ourselves off of oil for fuel and be self reliant.
 
No disagreement there and I'll go a step further and say we ought to be ending the import of oil from rogue nations prior to ending the use of it.

Despite being an advocate for all things electrical, I'm not opposed to oil drilling for that reason. Use will remain significant for quite a while yet so if any company has a viable source domestically then I sure won't be opposing development of it unless there's some genuine exceptional circumstance applying to that location. Electric I'd prefer but to the extent there's going to be oil used, and there will be for quite a while yet, well I'd rather that be locally produced if possible yes.

None of that helps someone who's struggling to afford the cost of petrol right now however. Given that other costs are also rising, such as food and rent, I've no doubt there'll be more than a few in that situation.
 
JohnDe said:
Australian governments and industry has explored this country for heavy crude suitable for fuel production for 100 years, we do not have it.
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Heavy conventional crude oil we aren't known to have that is true.

The country is however moderately prospective for light oil and more so for condensate. As a feedstock for bitumen that's useless but it makes great petrol.

I wouldn't expect there's any chance of Australia becoming a major oil producer but if there's some to be had well may as well use that rather than importing. It's not as though there's any realistic chance that oil use comes to an end in the next 20 years so if we can produce x% of it here then as a concept why wouldn't we do it?

Same with anything. I won't get rich winning $20 prizes but should I win one well then I'll claim it yes.
 
Logique2 said:
Today, researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have publisheda report which concludes that almost the entire global solar panel industry is implicated in the forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic and Muslim-majority peoples.."
Click to expand...
I have read this and many similar reports.
In every case they present no evidence to support their claim.
When similar reports are tested, they fall short of being credible:
Here's an excellent non-Chinese perspective to better understanding what you see or read about regarding China or Uyghurs:
 
Coal can be turned into oil.

I don't know the economics, only that its possible.

One thing we do have is coal, might as well use it.
 

From my post, above -

Domestic oil production is not currently sufficient to meet Australia’s total demand for fuel, even if all of it was refined domestically. A lot of production is condensate (a very light crude and by-product of national gas production). While it could be processed into fuel in an emergency, it is typically not considered commercially viable. As a result, most of Australia’s refined fuel products are either directly imported or refined from imported crude oil feedstock​

Oil refineries and fuel security

Less than one month after provision was made in the 2020–21 Budget for the design and implementation of a market mechanism to support domestic refineries, BP Australia announced it would cease fuel production at its Kwinana Refinery. Once this refinery is wound down over th
www.aph.gov.au
 
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