Electric cars?

[Value Collector]

Pretty much everyone is convinced about the economics of EV's by now. They will sell like hot cakes as long as the supply is there, and so far it isn't.

I made the mistake of looking at the comments section of a Face Book post talking about the EV incentives, and man I can tell you there is a lot of BS still being spread by the uninformed haters of EV’s out there.

 

[SirRumpole]

I made the mistake of looking at the comments section of a Face Book post talking about the EV incentives, and man I can tell you there is a lot of BS still being spread by the uninformed haters of EV’s out there.

Unfortunately there are idiots out there with their own prejudices. I wonder how much of it is stirred up by the dealers of ICE vehicles, similar to the gun lobby who don't want their toys taken away, some people still like the sound of throbbing V8's if you know what I mean.

 

[rederob]

After driving 1700+km through two states starting Friday morning and getting home Monday night, I just added up the cost and came up with $131.51 And I wasn't driving with economy in mind.

I used Tesla Superchargers for all but one charge, thought I'd try and Evie charger. Evie is cheaper than the Tesla chargers, though it took me a bit to find because the map address wasn't quite right but I figured it out in a few minutes. The Evie charger was at the back of the local Art Gallery in a major town centre, the phone app was giving me the main street at the location.

All charging was done while we stopped to eat or a get a coffee. We stopped and charged more than required because we like to have a walk and look around when traveling, so used those stops to top up. The Evie charger finished before we had completed our tour of the gallery.

At no point were we concerned about running out of energy.

View attachment 139322

Evie charge

Energy Fee	0.40 AUD /kWh
Energy Distributed	53.379 kWh
Energy Cost	21.35 AUD

Some people are thinking that most of the charging infrastructure needs to be subsidised, but at 40cents to 50cents/Kwh there is a decent margin giving a payback especially as it is likely that Tesla and Evie have bulk supply deals from electricity retailers that are way less than our residential rates.
All the federal government needs to do is work with industry to ensure that most of country Australia has an adequate charging infrastructure in smaller population centres.


If they had half a brain they would have worked out that they could progressively sell off a lot of what they put in, just as Optus progressively expanded its coverage as more users made their services viable.

 

[Value Collector]

Some people are thinking that most of the charging infrastructure needs to be subsidised, but at 40cents to 50cents/Kwh there is a decent margin giving a payback especially as it is likely that Tesla and Evie have bulk supply deals from electricity retailers that are way less than our residential rates.
All the federal government needs to do is work with industry to ensure that most of country Australia has an adequate charging infrastructure in smaller population centres.
View attachment 139327

If they had half a brain they would have worked out that they could progressively sell off a lot of what they put in, just as Optus progressively expanded its coverage as more users made their services viable.

Tesla charge about 44 cents I think, and they build stations with lots of bays and the chargers are fast.

Charge Fox only charge 20cents, But their chargers are slower, and often only have 1 bay and often you have to bring your own cable.

So on road trips I often drive past the cheaper locations if I know a Tesla location is on the route some where, But I have two charge Fox location at local shops near my house, in a pinch I might use them, have have only actually charged there 2 times in 3 years

 

[mullokintyre]

For those people who already drive an EV, what in your opinion is the best AP for locating Charging stations?
And not just Tesla ones thanks.
Mick

 

[JohnDe]

For those people who already drive an EV, what in your opinion is the best AP for locating Charging stations?
And not just Tesla ones thanks.
Mick

Plug share was useful on my trip https://www.plugshare.com/map/australia

 

[basilio]

But the way the financial industry has behaved in the last few decades, large parts of it could be gotten rid of with a net benefit to the consumer.

Indeed. In fact one of the clearest signs of a sick economy is a bloated financial services sector that "makes money" from various speculations. Whether it's pushing speculation on housing , shares, crypto, or just another hundred ways to make paper profits the industry has , IMV, become largely parasitic.

Obviously we need a financial sector in terms of savings, investment and keeping the wheels of commerce rolling. But, again IMV, we don't need the BS that passes for financial servicing we currently get shafted with.

 

[Value Collector]

For those people who already drive an EV, what in your opinion is the best AP for locating Charging stations?
And not just Tesla ones thanks.
Mick

I use plug share to find the non Tesla chargers (it does also show Tesla ones two though), there is also another website called “a better route planner”, it’s apparently very good, but requires you to sign up (for free) to get the most out of it.

But if you Drive a Tesla, you just put your destination into the navigation and it will automatically pick a route that goes past a tesla charger if it calculates that you are going to need to charge.

 

[rederob]

This article from The Driven pretty well summarises all the points raised in this thread that affect our ability to get hold on an EV.
The overriding factor is Scomo.

"The main reason is simple. When the Australian federal Coalition government went out of its way to demonise and mock EVs in the last election campaign – “they won’t tow your boat” and “they’ll ruin your weekend”, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told us then – most global car makers decided to make other plans."​

​

There's a bit more to it than that, but like nearly everything with Scomo, there is no coherent policy backing his brain farts.

 

[Smurf1976]

All the federal government needs to do is work with industry to ensure that most of country Australia has an adequate charging infrastructure in smaller population centres.

Yep, most of it can stand on its own two feet economically but on the other hand, there's a definite benefit in filling in any gaps that do exist.

EV's are a thing where the network effect applies. To be a full replacement for ICE, charging infrastructure needs to exist at reasonable intervals anywhere you want to go just as service stations do now. If it doesn't well then that's not a problem for the people living there, they'll be charging at home or driving an ICE, but it's a problem for those who don't live there and who wish to travel through.

Business can do most of it but government filling in any gaps seems reasonable to me.

 

[Smurf1976]

But if you Drive a Tesla, you just put your destination into the navigation and it will automatically pick a route that goes past a tesla charger if it calculates that you are going to need to charge.

I don't disagree as such, but if I'm a tourist on a road trip (and that's who the issue is particularly relevant for) then quite likely will be traveling by the route that takes me to the things I want to see or which has the nice scenery or whatever.

Case in point, even just limiting it to reasonably major roads there's 10 roads which cross the Victoria - SA border and many more if the minor ones are added. Someone taking the quickest route from Melbourne to Adelaide will likely just follow the Western Hwy / Dukes Hwy but someone who isn't heading straight to the capital city, or who's wanting to visit whoever or whatever on the way, may well choose to take a different route.

ICE's work simply because service stations are ubiquitous. Only in exceptional cases does one need to consciously seek one out, and ideally that's where EV chargers will get to. Something that's just there anywhere you reasonably expect to find one. It will happen.

 

[rederob]

Yep, most of it can stand on its own two feet economically but on the other hand, there's a definite benefit in filling in any gaps that do exist.

EV's are a thing where the network effect applies. To be a full replacement for ICE, charging infrastructure needs to exist at reasonable intervals anywhere you want to go just as service stations do now. If it doesn't well then that's not a problem for the people living there, they'll be charging at home or driving an ICE, but it's a problem for those who don't live there and who wish to travel through.

Business can do most of it but government filling in any gaps seems reasonable to me.

Given there are already EVs with 1000km range, there should not really be too many gaps in future.
Our immediate problem is that we don't have access to any of these long range EVs here, and where they do exist, they are not cheap.
However, as battery densities increase and batteries continue to get cheaper, it's not too hard to imagine the average EV sedan of 2025 having minimum real world ranges over 500km.

I guess a part of the infrastructure problem has been, and will continue so for a few more years, an inability to get EV makers to land enough product in Australia to warrant speeding up supply. So while we live in an infrastructure policy vacuum, we match that with a similar EV policy.

 

[Smurf1976]

I made the mistake of looking at the comments section of a Face Book post talking about the EV incentives, and man I can tell you there is a lot of BS still being spread by the uninformed haters of EV’s out there.

For the record some of the public comments to newspapers and so on are quite routinely used for entertainment in the industry.

There's some people with a good idea of it all, there are others who don't know and don't pretend to know, but there's others who are, well, entertaining in a strange way with their conspiracy theories and so on.....

 

[JohnDe]

I don't disagree as such, but if I'm a tourist on a road trip (and that's who the issue is particularly relevant for) then quite likely will be traveling by the route that takes me to the things I want to see or which has the nice scenery or whatever. Case in point, even just limiting it to reasonably major roads there's 10 roads which cross the Victoria - SA border and many more if the minor ones are added. Someone taking the quickest route from Melbourne to Adelaide will likely just follow the Western Hwy / Dukes Hwy but someone who isn't heading straight to the capital city, or who's wanting to visit whoever or whatever on the way, may well choose to take a different route.

ICE's work simply because service stations are ubiquitous. Only in exceptional cases does one need to consciously seek one out, and ideally that's where EV chargers will get to. Something that's just there anywhere you reasonably expect to find one. It will happen.

I just did that trip the other way around, with an EV.
First interstate trip not using an ICEV, put the destination in the Tesla nav & route plan with charging stops worked out for us. On the way back home we decided to check out some things, I added the new location in the nav and the Tesla worked out how much charge will be used and if any top up required. We did this a couple of times, once for dinner in a town off the highway and out of the way. No stress because the Tesla showed all our power requirements and I knew that we were safe.

Until you go out and experience it, fear of running out of juice will always be strong. I know, because I was the same.

 

[JohnDe]

The pub is for sale, and the old Holden dealership would make a great little museum

 

[qldfrog]

Yep, most of it can stand on its own two feet economically but on the other hand, there's a definite benefit in filling in any gaps that do exist.

EV's are a thing where the network effect applies. To be a full replacement for ICE, charging infrastructure needs to exist at reasonable intervals anywhere you want to go just as service stations do now. If it doesn't well then that's not a problem for the people living there, they'll be charging at home or driving an ICE, but it's a problem for those who don't live there and who wish to travel through.

Business can do most of it but government filling in any gaps seems reasonable to me.

I imagine the market for lithium extension packs: a 1t trailer you hook behind your tesla with a 40k lithium battery ?

 

[qldfrog]

For the record some of the public comments to newspapers and so on are quite routinely used for entertainment in the industry.

There's some people with a good idea of it all, there are others who don't know and don't pretend to know, but there's others who are, well, entertaining in a strange way with their conspiracy theories and so on.....

I hope i provide entertainment thinking that the EV aim is just to reduce travel ability and independent travel overall for the masses..obviously designs for europe and the US are slightly lacking for a 26m population living on a continent.
Green fuel CO2 neutral could fill all green narrative wo changing..or changing much,. of our existing fleet

 

[Value Collector]

I don't disagree as such, but if I'm a tourist on a road trip (and that's who the issue is particularly relevant for) then quite likely will be traveling by the route that takes me to the things I want to see or which has the nice scenery or whatever.

Case in point, even just limiting it to reasonably major roads there's 10 roads which cross the Victoria - SA border and many more if the minor ones are added. Someone taking the quickest route from Melbourne to Adelaide will likely just follow the Western Hwy / Dukes Hwy but someone who isn't heading straight to the capital city, or who's wanting to visit whoever or whatever on the way, may well choose to take a different route.

ICE's work simply because service stations are ubiquitous. Only in exceptional cases does one need to consciously seek one out, and ideally that's where EV chargers will get to. Something that's just there anywhere you reasonably expect to find one. It will happen.

Yeah, I still rent mostly ICE cars on international holidays, and sometimes a hybrid if it’s similar price, that’s mainly because Teslas are priced crazily high by the rental cars, and I don’t normally have that much driving to do.

I did regret not renting a Tesla in the UK though, because that was more of a road trip holiday for us, and we saw heaps of places we could have charged along the way.

 

[mullokintyre]

From Driven

Blink and you may miss it. On Wednesday at around 1pm – the web page permitting – around 100 brand new Ioniq 5 electric SUVs will be offered for sale by Hyundai.
They won’t be available for long, and good luck trying to get hold of one. More than 16,000 aspiring EV customers have registered for the first-come first served offering. It’s like trying to buy a ticket to a Rolling Stones concert. And if it’s anything like the first offering last year, the web site will probably crash anyway.
Welcome to the cut-throat world of trying to buy an electric vehicle in Australia. The Ioniq 5 has won multiple awards across the world, and is highly sought, particularly with its vehicle to load facilities. But it’s not the only EV that is nearly impossible to buy.
Tesla now says there is a 9-month wait for its best-selling Model 3, by far the most popular EV in Australia. The long awaited Model Y is still not even available for order in Australia.
Kia has only 500 of its new EV6 electric vehicles – also with vehicle to load – available in Australia, but it says demand is 10 times more than that. Volvo has 1500 orders for its XC40 but can only service one third of those this year. Polestar has thousands interested in its Polestar 2, but is also on rations after making the first of its Australian deliveries last week.
BMW says it is working with HQ in Munich to secure more supply. “At present, local delivery timing from order placement on a new BMW iX3 is approximately six months, while delivery timing for new BMW iX and i4 models is between six to 12 months depending on the variant,” a spokesman told The Driven.
The story with other car makers is equally bleak. Seven of the top 10 selling EVs in Europe in 2021 are simply not available for sale in Australia. That includes the Model Y and the two Volkswagen models, the ID.3 and the ID.4.

Its hard to argue with any of the above, as for the past six weeks I have been fruitlessly trying to organise a testdrive of ANY ev.
So obviously the demand is there.
However, the next section of the article is questionable to say the least.

The main reason is simple. When the Australian federal Coalition government went ot of its way to demonise and mock EVs in the last election campaign – “they won’t tow your boat” and “they’ll ruin your weekend”, prime minister Scott Morrison told us then – most global car makers decided to make other plans.
They put Australia at the end of the EV queue. They had other reasons to do so, too. Australia is one of the very few countries in the world that has no vehicle emissions standards. The country that leads the world in the uptake of rooftop solar is seemingly determined to be at the tail end of the transition to EVs. What a waste of rooftop solar!
The Coalition intransigence on a coherent EV policy – it had tested the waters on emissions standards once, but was cowered by the “carbon tax on wheels” headlines in the Murdoch media – means that the car makers have no incentive to sell EVs in this country.

Simple? Did the writer check with all the EV companies as to why they will not ship to OZ?
Could it possible be because they have to convert to RHD, or have to ship by boat when shiping costs are thru the roof assuming you can get a ship to move them, or pass the crash test dummy legislation, plus its a very small maret.
The public will buy EV's regardless of the policy of the government, thecar makers could jack up their prices and get realy good returns if they wanted to.
Having an emissions policy (whether its coherent or not is another issue) will not solve the lack of vehicles.
If we have a change of government, as seems likely, what will change that will encourage the foreign vehicle makers to ship here?
Subsidies? perhaps.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

From Driven

Its hard to argue with any of the above, as for the past six weeks I have been fruitlessly trying to organise a testdrive of ANY ev.
So obviously the demand is there.
However, the next section of the article is questionable to say the least.

Simple? Did the writer check with all the EV companies as to why they will not ship to OZ?
Could it possible be because they have to convert to RHD, or have to ship by boat when shiping costs are thru the roof assuming you can get a ship to move them, or pass the crash test dummy legislation, plus its a very small maret.
The public will buy EV's regardless of the policy of the government, thecar makers could jack up their prices and get realy good returns if they wanted to.
Having an emissions policy (whether its coherent or not is another issue) will not solve the lack of vehicles.
If we have a change of government, as seems likely, what will change that will encourage the foreign vehicle makers to ship here?
Subsidies? perhaps.
Mick

The "government" reason were not why car manufacturers were not sending evs. I quoted an article pages back on the actual reasons and that wasn't it.