Just my view but it would be pretty unreasonable and ridiculous to require ongoing payment to use an FM radio that's worth practically nothing relative to the overall cost of the car and which was almost certainly paid for in the original purchase anyway.Tesla does not say whether basic functions such as Bluetooth and FM radio will be deleted once the free Standard Connectivity subscription ends after eight years.
I am not actually sure how the radio is set up, but the only reason I could imagine that the radio would be affected is if it uses internet radio rather than tuning into regular broadcast radio.Just my view but it would be pretty unreasonable and ridiculous to require ongoing payment to use an FM radio that's worth practically nothing relative to the overall cost of the car and which was almost certainly paid for in the original purchase anyway.
Features that actually require internet sure but not a radio, they've been standard equipment in cars for half a century.
Just my view but it would be pretty unreasonable and ridiculous to require ongoing payment to use an FM radio that's worth practically nothing relative to the overall cost of the car and which was almost certainly paid for in the original purchase anyway.
Features that actually require internet sure but not a radio, they've been standard equipment in cars for half a century.
The battery was at 95%. We drove 150kms to a coastal town, checked out some realestate at about 4:30. Went to a local brewery and had a beer, and then drove home.
I noticed that the Auto Pilot (basic self drive) felt more refined, I think the latest
Who will be the eco era’s Rockefellers?
On Boxing Day 2018, Elon Musk did not let the festivities keep him away from Twitter. Reminding his followers that they had only five days left to take advantage of a dollars 7,500 tax credit on electric vehicles, the Tesla founder added that “most importantly, every electric car, Tesla or otherwise, matters to the environment we all share. Every time someone chooses electric, the future gets a little bit brighter.”
It was a beguiling message: that Tesla owners could enjoy all the comfort and convenience of car ownership without the environmental guilt. And for the most part it was true. Electric cars are far better for the environment, on the whole. As we generate more of our electricity from renewable sources, and as we make more of our steel with hydrogen rather than coal, the environmental case for electric cars will only strengthen.
However, as Henry Sanderson shows in his book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green, the uptake of the electric car will bring its own set of moral dilemmas, environmental and geopolitical. That uptake is well under way. Although electric cars make up only about 1 per cent of the global fleet, their numbers are growing fast.
olkswagen is aiming for half of its sales to be electric by 2030 - this is also the year after which it will no longer be possible to buy a petrol car in the UK. All those cars will be powered by batteries made from rare earth elements as well as lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt. Demand will skyrocket: for lithium, it is expected to increase thirtyfold by 2030.
Sanderson, a former reporter on China and commodities for the Financial Times, writes that whoever controls these resources will be “the new Rockefellers. A new strategic game has opened up.” His book is an account of the opening moves of that game, a travelogue of his journey through the supply chains that will shape our decarbonised future.
That journey takes him to the Atacama desert in Chile, where silvery flecks of lithium are being evaporated from vast pools of brine, and to cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child labour is tarnishing the moral credentials of electric cars. His intention is to identify the pitfalls we must avoid if we are to transition equitably to electric cars.
As he travels the world, a pattern begins to emerge: wherever there are the metals needed for the green transition, China has already snapped them up. China, the world’s most voracious importer of oil, was quick to see that by embracing electric cars it could reduce its reliance on the rest of the world and in 2009 began handing out lavish subsidies to their buyers. To feed its domestic electric vehicle market, Chinese companies began buying up rare earth deposits in Chile, Australia, Congo and Indonesia, getting a head start in a race that the West did not even realise it had to run.
Sanderson recounts a series of deals that Chinese companies were able to seal without alerting their western competitors to their geopolitical import. In Australia, the Chinese mining company Tianqi bought a 51 per cent stake in the world’s largest lithium mine with the backing of the China Development Bank (CDB).
“Most western companies cannot get a vast state-owned bank such as the CDB to provide credit for a deal,” Sanderson writes. “The investors who owned [the mine] were only too happy to accept [Tianqi’s offer] and the deal was waved through by Australian regulators. It was the first round in the global race to secure lithium supplies, and Tianqi had won before anyone was paying attention.”
The pattern repeated itself in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Chinese companies now own 80 per cent of the country’s output of cobalt. In Indonesia too, the Chinese stainless steel company Tsingshan successfully lobbied for an export ban on nickel, so only companies with a presence in the country could take advantage of demand for the metal.
The impression one gets from these deals is that western governments have fallen for a complacent delusion; that it doesn’t really matter who owns which resources because whoever owns them will always want to sell them to the highest bidder on the international market.
By this logic, it doesn’t matter if most of the lithium mines are owned by Chinese companies, so long as Tesla can stump up the cash to buy it. But what happens if - as in the case of Indonesian nickel - it’s no longer for sale? What if a geopolitical calamity such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine suddenly isolates swathes of the global economy? In such cases, you would rather your supply chains started closer to home.
Sanderson shows that this penny has finally begun to drop in the minds of western governments and car manufacturers. He talks to the entrepreneur Jeremy Wrathall, who hopes to revive Cornwall’s long tradition of mining by extracting lithium from the county’s hills.
Commenting on that prospect, the prime minister Boris Johnson said: “It is a wonderful thing that Cornwall indeed boasts extensive resources of lithium, and we mean to exploit them.” Yet Sanderson adds that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities, “replied haughtily that the UK had relied on fair and free trade for its industries and that would continue”.
Sanderson deftly guides us through the convolutions of which company bought what from which, and he livens up that potentially desiccated subject matter with an eye for characterful detail. Among the characters we meet is Robert Friedland, a copper tycoon and friend of Steve Jobs, the Apple founder, who posed in his younger days as a hippy and set up a communal farm, only for the other members of the commune to slowly realise he was working them to the bone for his own profit.
Despite the seemingly insuperable geopolitical quandaries with which it deals, the tone of Sanderson’s book is one of cautious optimism. “We shouldn’t be hostile to green technologies,” he writes, “but we shouldn’t be naive either. The oil age has left a long scar on the twentieth century. We should make sure that the industries of our green future do much better.”
Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green
By Henry Sanderson
(Oneworld, 288pp)
The Times
Bit of a non event seeing as we cannot get SirusXM in Australia. (or Panda for that matter.)I agree, and I hope that Tesla will continue to allow access to radio if an owner decides not to sign up to the subscription service. We’ll find out in 8 years.
Why Tesla Will Add Internet-based SiriusXM streaming to Model 3, Model Y and Others
Tesla's Model S and Model X vehicles offer SiriusXM radio through dedicated hardware that includes an antenna to receive the satellite-based signals. This iswww.notateslaapp.com
Things are moving along in the Electric Aircraft sphere.
From The evil Murdoch Empire
The short haul SAAB 340's will need to be upgraded some time in the future.
Perhaps this is the way they are going about it.
Mick
I think Mick brought it up a few pages back. But it does sound like REX is trying to get ahead of the curve.
Remember the góod old time it was forbidden to carry batteries bigger than a few watts in airplanes...Don't know if this should be in another thread, coz it aint electric cars, but electric airplanes are going to be a reality soon.
Rex says it will retrofit planes with electric-propulsion engines, saying it's the future of air travel.
The regional airline has unveiled its plan to replace some of its fleet's jet engines with electric-propulsion engines. Trial flights are to start in 2024.www.abc.net.au
I forecast a few coming headlines:Remember the góod old time it was forbidden to carry batteries bigger than a few watts in airplanes...
Just saying?
BYD Atto 3 electric SUV approved for sale in Australia
The Australian Government has granted approval for the BYD Atto 3 EV to be sold here ahead of deliveries beginning in August.
The BYD Atto 3 has been approved for sale in Australia just weeks before deliveries are set to begin.
A government approval notice was published today, advising the Chinese electric SUV is compliant with Australian Design Rules (ADRs).
Requests for approval are often done months in advance, so it’s unusual that this particular approval notice was issued just weeks before deliveries are set to begin.
It lists a tare mass of 1680kg and 1750kg for the Standard Range and Extended Range, respectively.
Interestingly, braked and unbraked towing capacity is 0kg.
17-inch alloy wheels are also listed as standard fit for the base model, despite the Australian website noting standard 18-inch alloys for both variants.
Distributor EVDirect emailed customers earlier this month that local deliveries of the Atto 3 would be delayed by 6 to 8 weeks, and would begin in August – not July, as had previously been claimed.
The delay pushed not only deliveries but also the timeline for test drives into August or September.
It has subsequently notified customers of the Standard Range model that it’ll be delayed further as BYD is prioritising production of the Extended Range.
“Unfortunately, we have received advice from BYD in China that the production of the Standard Range Atto 3 vehicles will not commence until estimated mid-October with delivery to Australia scheduled to start in November-December,” said EVDirect in a letter to customers.
“This is due to the high-volume production requirements of the extended range option.”
It’s giving customers the opportunity to keep their place in the queue by securing an Extended Range in the same colour, with an estimated delivery time of August/September 2022.
EVDirect says almost 90 per cent of customers have opted for the Extended Range model.
If you’re not already in the queue, you’ll be waiting until December 2022 or January 2023 for a new Standard Range according to the website.
In the past week, the wait times for new Extended Range orders have also ticked over to December/January according to EVDirect’s website.
Customers will pick up their cars from an Experience Centre location and not a mycar location, as had previously been the plan.
Servicing, however, will still be available at both Eagers and mycar locations.
There’s also the option to have your BYD vehicle delivered to you, for a fee, if you live more than 50km from an Eagers location.
The company says it’ll release warranty and servicing information shortly.
BYD vehicles have previously been offered in Australia – you may have taken a previous-generation BYD e6 taxi in Sydney – but the EVDirect-led push of the new Atto 3 small electric SUV is the Chinese brand’s biggest step here yet.
While not a household name in Australia, BYD is a giant in the ‘new energy vehicle’ space, which as well as cars produces electric buses and even batteries for other companies. Warren Buffett is a major shareholder.
https://images.carexpert.com.au/resize/3000/-/app/uploads/2022/07/byd-atto-3-interior.jpeg
It now exclusively produces electric and hybrid vehicles.
BYD has established an Australia-focused line at one of its factories in China, and plans to commence production of the first 15,000 cars for this market. That is the kind of healthy supply only Tesla can compete with.
Beyond the Atto 3, a further two BYD vehicle models will go on sale both online and in-store by December 2022 in Australia, expected to be a small EV hatch and mid-sized EV sedan.
The Atto 3 will tackle the heart of the electric vehicle market in Australia, giving the MG ZS EV a direct rival while also vying for prospective buyers of the Kia Niro EV and Nissan Leaf – both more expensive vehicles.
It’s priced from $44,990 drive-away depending on your state, with the Extended Range model costing $3000 more.
The Extended Range costs an extra $3000, and offers 420km of range on the WLTP cycle – an increase of 100km on the Standard Range.
Both variants use BYD’s in-house ‘Blade’ LFP batteries, with base cars packing 50kWh of capacity and extended range models 60kWh.
The battery powers a 150kW and 310Nm front-wheel drive electric motor, capable of pushing the Atto 3 from zero to 100km/h in a claimed 7.3 seconds.
There’s a 400V charging architecture, with maximum AC charging capacity of 7kW and DC charging at up to 80kW.
BYD claims it has taken more than 3000 orders for the Atto 3 already, which would put it among Australia’s best-selling EVs already.
To put this 3000 figure into context, market-wide EV sales in Australia between January and June 2022 inclusive of Tesla sit at 9680 units, about half of which are the Model 3.
The company says the Atto 3 is currently undergoing safety testing in Europe by Euro NCAP, which will allow it to get an ANCAP rating.
Just four paint colours will be offered: standard white, along with grey, blue and red. The latter three will cost an extra $700.
EVDirect also says there’ll be just one interior trim option and one alloy wheel option available, at least at first.
Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are in development and will be added as over-the-air updates.
Slow EV uptake a chance to get it right: Energy Security Board
Australia’s slow adoption of electric vehicles is an opportunity to learn from other countries about how best to incorporate them into the electricity grid, the Energy Security Board says.
The ESB – a body including the heads of the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Market Commission – was late last year tasked with coming up with a plan on the rollout of EVs and their batteries.
“Standards to support the effective integration of charging devices for electric vehicles were identified as a priority activity as part of delivering this plan,” its issues paper reads.
“Although EV uptake in Australia has been slower than in offshore markets, with total EV sales of 20,665 over 2021 in Australia, this represents a threefold increase from the 6900 EVs sold in 2020, with growth continuing despite challenging supply chain issues. The fact that EV uptake to date in Australia lags other markets represents an opportunity to learn from international experience and adapt what might work best in an Australian context.’’
The issues paper calls for feedback on technical issues such as the standardisation and interoperability of smart charging technology, the ability for the remote management of batteries connected to the grid, and pricing issues.
The paper says there were 291 fast-charging sites around Australia as at January this year, up from 157 in August 2020. The highest number of chargers is in NSW with 93, followed by 67 in Victoria and 63 in Queensland.
For its part, fuel provider Ampol said it had so far committed to rolling out 120 fast-charging sites of its own nationally by October 2023.
“Building this enabling infrastructure will alleviate range anxiety and provide fleet owners with the confidence that their employees can recharge wherever and whenever they need,’’ Ampol managing director Matt Halliday said. “Moreover, fleet owners want to ensure the seamless experience of refuelling, billing and account management that currently exists in traditional fuels can translate to a BEV (battery electric vehicle) environment.’’
Over the longer term, the ASX-listed Ampol intends to offer an at-home charging capacity.
Submissions in response to the ESB’s issues paper will be accepted until August 19.
CAMERON ENGLAND BUSINESS EDITOR
I forecast a few coming headlines:
Civil residential building hit by flamming missile ( Ukraine style) or if technology advances to save planes:
dropped burning airplane battery explode on playground,..
I see no way out with current battery technology
Ohh sxxt yes...electric buses all over, and TeslaDo Lithium batteries still catch fire these days ?
Technically, they don't catch fire, they have a runaway thermal reaction that generates enormous heat.Do Lithium batteries still catch fire these days ?
Technically, they don't catch fire, they have a runaway thermal reaction that generates enormous heat.
A fire needs oxygen to complete the reaction, whereas a runaway Lithium battery does not.
Not withstanding that , there will always be instances of runaway thermal reaction, at least while Darwins Theory of natural selection still holds.
People will do dumb things with and to lithium batteries, and there will be technical faults.
Just like ICE engined cars catch fire, and Lead Acid batteries will on the odd occasion, swell up and blow apart.
mick
Lithium batteries: safe to fly?
Today, Lithium batteries play a barely visible, yet essential role in both our daily life and aviation alike. Manufactured and handled correctly, Lithium batteries are safe. But production failures, mishandling, or not being aware of their specific characteristics can have serious repercussions.
Lithium batteries are today’s power source of choice. As we become ever more reliant on Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) to provide at your fingertips information, entertainment and communication, then so increases the demand for more powerful, yet lighter, sources of power.
Hundreds of millions of Lithium batteries or equipment with Lithium batteries are carried on aircraft annually. These can be as part of passengers carry-on items, as aircraft (e.g. Portable IFE, defibrillators) or aircrew equipment (such as Electronic Flight Bags). They can be shipped as cargo in battery form or within other purchased items to support the demand for “just in time deliveries”, or indeed as power supply for aircraft equipment. Lithium batteries are becoming continually more common place in the aircraft environment.
But the introduction of Lithium batteries included some highly visible cases of cell phones or laptops self-igniting and burning. Likewise, several events have occurred on aircraft, ranging from localized and limited fires to large, uncontrolled in-flight fires resulting in hull losses and fatalities.
The air industry has become more aware of the specific characteristics of Lithium batteries and the associated risks can now be mitigated. Procedures have been developed to address the risks for Lithium batteries being part of the aircraft design, those belonging to passengers or crews carry-on items, or indeed procedures linked to the shipping of Lithium batteries as cargo.
LITHIUM BATTERIES: A POWERFUL AND VERSATILE TECHNOLOGY, ASSOCIATED WITH A COMMON RISK
Lithium is the metal with the lowest density, but with the greatest electrochemical potential and energy-to-weight ratio, meaning that is has excellent energy storage capacity. These large energy density and low weight characteristics make it an ideal material to act as a power source for any application where weight is an issue, aircraft applications being a natural candidate.
While the technology used and the intrinsic risk is the same for all applications, different solutions and procedures exist to mitigate this common risk depending on where and how the Lithium battery is used (i.e. part of the aircraft design, transported as cargo or in passengers and crews luggage and PED).
This section will highlight the benefits of this new technology irrespective of its use in applications, and describe the associated risk of “thermal runaway”.
Lithium: an increasing use
Experimentation with Lithium batteries began in 1912 and the first Lithium batteries were sold in the 1970’s. In the nineties, Lithium battery technology began to be widely used by a number of industries that were looking for light, powerful and durable batteries.
As it turns out, Lithium use in batteries has been one of the major drivers of Lithium demand since the rechargeable Lithium-ion battery was invented in the early nineties (fig.1).
(fig.1)
Forecast Lithium demand by application (Source: TRU Group)
Today, Lithium batteries are progressively replacing previous technology batteries – e.g. Nickel-Cadmium, Lead-acid – and can be found in most of electronic and autonomous electric systems or equipment. Development and applications are evolving with latest uses including ultrathin (down to 0.5 mm) and flexible technologies.
The Lithium battery market is extremely dynamic and expanding fast, with a growing application as the power source for a wide range of electric vehicles. In fact, no level off is foreseen in the coming years. In 2014, 5.5 billion Lithium-ion batteries were produced (fig.2).
(fig.2)
Worldwide batteries production
Different types of Lithium batteries, different applications
Different types
I will strongly disagree on putting it as same same but no point arguying, just look at what will happen in the coming years.As for electric planes, i hope not to have to use them.Technically, they don't catch fire, they have a runaway thermal reaction that generates enormous heat.
A fire needs oxygen to complete the reaction, whereas a runaway Lithium battery does not.
Not withstanding that , there will always be instances of runaway thermal reaction, at least while Darwins Theory of natural selection still holds.
People will do dumb things with and to lithium batteries, and there will be technical faults.
Just like ICE engined cars catch fire, and Lead Acid batteries will on the odd occasion, swell up and blow apart.
mick
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?