JohnDe
La dolce vita
- Joined
- 11 March 2020
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Handy software update for the Tesla, downloading now. Other manufacturers are slowly catching up. Now we just need the infrastructure to catch up :-(
Automatic Supercharger Rerouting
If you're navigating to a Supercharger and it suddenly becomes more congested before you arrive, Tesla will now calculate whether there are any nearby Supercharger that may be less congested.
If Tesla believes that it can reduce your total travel time by navigating to a less congested charger, it will reroute you to a Supercharger that's less busy.
Australian battery manufacturing sector a step closer with FBICRC precursor pilot plant
Researchers and industry professionals working under the FBICRC banner will use Australian-produced nickel, cobalt and other materials to refine manufacturing techniques needed to produce cathode precursors at scale.
Australian battery industry research is set to take a significant step forward on Monday as the sector launches its first pilot manufacturing plant to produce key precursors for use in electric batteries.
For the next 18 months researchers and industry professionals working under the banner of the Future Industry Battery Cooperative Research Centre (FBICRC) will use Australian-produced nickel, cobalt and other materials to refine manufacturing techniques needed to produce cathode precursors at scale.
FBICRC chief executive Shannon O’Rourke told The Australian the pilot manufacturing centre would produce about 8kg of precursors a day – about three tonnes a year – in the first major scale-up of battery-making techniques for the industry.
FBICRC is backed by a swath of Australian and international mining and technology companies, including BASF, BHP’s Nickel West Division, IGO and Cobalt Blue. It is also backed by the CSIRO and major universities including Curtin and the Queensland University of Technology.
Mr O’Rourke said that while the volume of precursors produced in the Perth-based facility would be relatively low, the pilot plant was a necessary step before moving to an industrial-scale pilot. He said it would help the industry to establish a consistent process for the technically challenging precursor manufacturing process.
In addition to the researchers and scientists working directly on the pilot, all of the 19 companies that had so far contributed to the FBICRC would have the right to access the data produced, and many were also keen to have their staff work with, and learn from, the scientists and engineers running the pilot plant, he said.
“There are two key benefits that the participants get when they participate in the project. The first is they get to work with the facility …” he said.
“The second thing is the intellectual property that’s created throughout the life of the project – all of the participants have equal and full access to the intellectual property. At the end of the project, the participants share in the value of that IP to the extent of their contribution.”
While Australian governments and industry – and the broader public – were extraordinarily keen to establish an Australian battery manufacturing sector as quickly as possible, Mr O’Rourke said, the complex nature of the chemistry involved meant that Australia needed to build up its own expertise to ensure the industry could be established successfully.
Mr O’Rourke said the chemistry was so complex that the failure rate of batteries produced in the international “giga factories” that fed the global electric vehicle industry was as high as 20 per cent.
“This first phase is primarily all about consistency. So we’ve already produced precursors at lab-scale successfully. This plant will enable us to move from that lab-scale through to the first step out of that. And we need to make sure that we get the parameters right and then run them consistently. So it’s a capability building exercise,” he said.
“If you skipped the scale step, and you didn’t produce the right result, you’d be lost.”
The precursor materials produced in Perth will be sent to QUT for further refinement to produce cathodes, and eventually to produce homegrown batteries for research purposes.
The $18m project will run for the next 18 months, and Mr O’Rourke said the FBICRC has had a warm reception for its future plans from the new federal government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and was still hopeful of winning support for a $750m battery research and development institute the FBICRC says will be needed to scale up the Australian industry further by establishing an industrial-scale manufacturing plant.
“We’re moving from gram scale at the laboratory bench, to kilogram scale – which is what this facility is – through to tonne scale at an industrial pilot,” he said.
Australia can compete in manufacturing. With this facility we will have greater capability. We’ll be able to undertake rapid prototyping and we’ll be training the workforce of the future – I think it’s going to happen sooner than everyone thinks.”
NICK EVANS
RESOURCE WRITER
Now this sounds like a nice EV, whether you are a petrol head or not, but you need deep pockets.
2024 Lucid Air Review, Pricing, and Specs
The 2024 Lucid Air's big battery and compact motors—both designed in-house—allow it to deliver unbeatable range and heroic acceleration performance.www.caranddriver.com
Why Electric Vehicles Are Becoming More Popular In Rural Areas
For a long time, there's been a stereotype that's portrayed electric vehicles as crippled woke vehicles only wealthy urbanites can afford to drive (or indeed can actually make use of because of very limited range).
But as new data shows this week, there's more growth in electric vehicle sales in some rural areas than in major cities.
Here's why we think that's the case - and why we think EVs are well suited today for modern rural life.
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00:00 Introduction
01:44 Subscribe and Support!
02:06 The Rural-urban shift
04:33 What About Charging?
07:09 Fuel prices, larger commutes, play a part
08:39 EVs are becoming more acceptable to conservatives
10:05 Rural owners are more likely to have space to generate power
11:51 Thanks, and Goodbye!
I wondered when the Federal Govt would say "hang on a minute, you State Govts are taking over our fuel excise tax", it has taken a while for the penny to drop.?
Not the sharpest tools in the shed.
From the article:Albanese government seeks to pull plug on Victoria’s electric vehicle tax
Federal Labor has joined a legal bid to strike down Victoria’s controversial electric vehicle tax, opening up a fight with several states over who should control billions of dollars of road user revenue.www.theage.com.au
The Commonwealth collects around $12 billion in fuel tax every year, but that will gradually shift to state coffers if more motorists adopt electric vehicles and states levy their own distance-based user charges.
Ev’s don’t get off entirely scot free.Well, we knew it had to happen, EV drivers can't expect to get off scot free, but it's a bit of a hoot watching Federal and States slug it out over who gets the revenue.
Maybe they should take it to National Cabinet and agree to a 50/50 split.
Ev’s don’t get off entirely scot free.
1, we still pay rego.
2, we still pay GST on electricity purchases.
3, we produce extra profit for the government by adding demand to state owned electricity infrastructure.
And probably the best part.
4, we lower air pollution which costs the government Many billions per year, a cost that ICE car owners get off Scot free on.
Fair point on emissions.
Extra profit for government ?
EV owners will be adding to demand for power alright which is where we already have a problem that infrastructure isn't keeping up with demand.
EV's are a tiny bit of the problem at the moment, but there are governments that will be dreading a rapid takeup of EV's because they know that the infrastructure isn't there to support it and it will cost billions.
EVs will have to compete with a lot of other off peak devices as appliances get smarter. Clothes driers, dishwashers, washing machines as well as hot water systems, so the off peak time is going to get more crowded as time goes on.I guess a main point to remember is that the grid isn’t struggling to meet demand 24/7, the majority of the time there is a lot of excess capacity just sitting there doing nothing, that only exists to meet those couple of hours of peak demand.
If cars are charged over night after 10pm and before 6am they can use all that extra capacity that is doing nothing, this means the owners of that capacity which is some cases is the government, will get to put those assets to work earning money when otherwise they wouldn’t be earning anything, this not only helps the owners earn more from their existing assets but it also helps reduce the cost of running the grid, because it doesn’t cost anything extra to use some of this infrastructure such as transmission lines, but their running costs can be spread across a larger customer base on a per unit basis.
See the peak in demand in the chart below, that’s the peak in demand when you can say the grid might struggle, but it’s only at that peak for 2 hours or so, either side of that peak is a lot of opportunity space to charge cars easily, without putting extra stress on the grid but instead actually increasing its profits and incentivising more investment.
View attachment 144178
All those devices you named are already being used extensively, if some of them switch to being used during off peak times, then that will open up more capacity during the traditional peak times.EVs will have to compete with a lot of other off peak devices as appliances get smarter. Clothes driers, dishwashers, washing machines as well as hot water systems, so the off peak time is going to get more crowded as time goes on.
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