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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
I remember some time ago the belief was that oil production had reached it's zenith and we were on a downward slope from there.
The prices went up and the doomdayers were predicting the worst case scenarios.
As you so correctly say it is a finite resource and its day will eventually arrive.
Will the old sweat machine make an appearance as a mode of transport for short haul.
I just had a thought, the Toorak Tractors being replaced in the shopping centres wow.
 
The big problem with nuclear do we have the pollies with the foresight to take this step. For me they are only interested in the 3 years forward from the last election and holding onto the Treasury Bench
From a State perspective we had a couple of real forward thinkers here in WA.
Mr Charles Court, later Sir Charlie, Liberal, and
Mr Ernie Bridge, Labour.
Sadly the calibre these blokes had shown is a rareity generally found countrywide .
 
I agree but the push for more charging stations etc..nah .
Can we not agree that swapping battery pack would be a better option?
Move the management IT( internal battery system,not people?) within a standard pack and:
You are as efficient as ICE, your EV has no range issues, same performance now as in 10 y time and technology of battery can improve or be revolutionised in parallel.
We do not have ice built for specific oil field product and thrown away when the field is exhausted..as we do with lithium
Potentially packs using H2 in cells as well so that we are not limited to lithium
That is where government push should be.
I am more on more convinced our current batch of EV is the equivalent of the fluo bulbs we were pushed to buy in 2000 to replace filament ones, plenty of promises..under delivery.. ultimately a liability.
I got conned as all environment caring people did, not again
Governments should guide not direct technology..same mistakes again and again.
Basically we should split EV and battery as 2 issues
EV hard to fault in concept, battery..not yet there for replacement of needs.(talking planet wide here)
So the global solution pushed by our western governments/WEF is to mandate the need....you own nothing definitely not your car, you do not travel ..hum
 
And to reenforce I fully agree there, oil itself has to be replaced, and the earlier the better but we do not want to see things like that
Absurdities resulting of governments ineptitude and narrative...
And sadly. We are now seeing diesel generators supplying EV charging stations..the irony..or as I see it..the waste ...poor earth
 

Tesla already went down the battery swap route, and realised for multiple reasons it’s an inferior model.

 
Eventually limited options will drive the adoption, this will happen when renewables have maxed out what they can sensibly deliver, be that on the generation side, storage side or available space and economic side.
It all boils back to energy density and we need more and more of it.
 
An interesting article, that explains the reality for a lot of countries, the difficulties they face and the role hybrids can play.

At the moment the Government in Australia has a lot of fires burning and E.V's rate very low on the importance scale, but as with most of the issues the problems are growing daily.

Plug in hybrids make no sense in Australia financially, there is no point in the companies trying to push them on a common sense theme, when they don't stack up on a financially.
In W.A the Govt is going to tax E.V's at 2.5c/km and PHEV's at 2c/km, when you add the cost of petrol/ maintenance and price premium, they make no sense at all IMO. A person is far better off either buying full petrol model for half the price, or a full E.V for a similar price.

 
Gee, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel there by reading articles by groups who receive funding from fossil fuels think tanks. What else have you been reading? Maybe look for more credible sources rather than alarmist propaganda.

 
Well this shows how quickly a battery plant can be built, if someone is interested in building one here.


South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution Ltd. will invest 5.7 trillion won ($4.3 billion) to produce electric-car batteries in the US to comply with President Joe Biden’s clean energy tax law, which seeks to encourage domestic production and reduce reliance on Chinese suppliers.

The Hyundai group — which includes Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Corp. and Genesis — and LG Energy will split the investment 50-50, according to a statement Friday. The plant, in Bryan County, Georgia, will have an annual capacity of 30 GWh, enough to power 300,000 electric vehicles, the carmaker said.
Construction will start in the second half of 2023 and production will begin as early as the end of 2025.
 
Sorry to say the people resposible in the Dept of Foresight are having a "lack of foresight" time off.
 
The new Volvo small SUV unveiled, it looks like two battery chemistries are going to be the go, which makes a lot of sense IMO. A person can buy for range, or buy for price, very similar as happened with ICE cars.


The entry-level option is a 51kWh lithium-iron phosphate battery – technology used by Tesla and China's BYD, which is cheaper to produce than a traditional lithium-ion pack, but not as energy dense.
Buyers will be able to option a 69kWh battery with nickel-cobalt-manganese chemistry, which when paired with one electric motor at the rear, is estimated to deliver up to 480km of claimed driving range.
 
Ford & Tesla, this will be interesting in the world of EVs.


 
Things in the EV world are picking up pace, again.

After decades of trying to sell German engineering to Americans only to end up with a tiny slice of the world’s most profitable car market, Volkswagen has a new strategy: Pretend it is American.
Inspired by electric-truck start-ups like Rivian and the buzz around Tesla’s planned pick-up, the European car giant is about to relaunch the defunct Scout brand as an off-road electric vehicle made to Americans’ tastes.
VW is hoping that the combination of a US brand, a marketing message heavy on Americana, and a foray into SUVs and pick-up trucks – the biggest and most profitable segment of the US car market – can finally boost its presence in the country.

 
Who says battery plants can't be built where they don't build cars.


General Motors Co. and Posco Future M Co., Ltd. have secured half of the financing for a C$600 million ($442 million) electric-vehicle battery component plant in Quebec from the provincial and federal governments.

In March 2022, the US and South Korean companies announced plans to form a joint venture dubbed Ultium Cam and build a cathode material factory in Becancour, halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. Cathodes represent about 40% of the cost of a battery cell, according to General Motors. The carmaker has committed to invest $35 billion in electric and autonomous vehicles between 2020 and 2025.

The governments of Canada and Quebec will each contribute around C$150 million to the project, which is expected to create 200 jobs. The plant is scheduled to be in operation within two years.
 
The speed of change is picking up-

The Global Adoption Of Battery Electric Vehicles Is Gaining More Traction​

By Sam Korus | @skorusARK
Director of Research, Autonomous Technology & Robotics
Battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales surpassed 10% share of global light vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2023, as shown below. For the past three years, BEV adoption during the first quarter has lagged that in the fourth quarter, perhaps because of Chinese New Year. This year, however, BEV share broke that seasonal trend.​
Not all automakers have participated in the upside. Tesla, BYD, VW, and GAC Motor, for example, accounted for ~75% of the year-to-date BEV sales growth on a year-over-year basis through April 20231—even though they account for only ~48% of total sales—while ~40% of automakers reported BEV sales declines. Macroeconomic headwinds seem to be separating the winners from the losers.​

Source: Irle, V. 2023. “Global EV Adoption is on steady increase.” Twitter. Based on data from EV-volumes.com, as of June 2, 2023.
 
Interesting article, especially about how many dogs are killed on the road in the U.S.
From the article:
According to the incident report filed with California's Department of Motor Vehicles, the robotaxi’s autonomous driving systems detected the dog, however neither the vehicle’s on-board systems nor the human ‘safety operator’ in the driver’s seat applied the brakes.

The spokesperson also claimed the dog took an “unusual path” at “a high rate of speed directly towards the side of the vehicle”, leading to the impact.

Some US websites – such as animal fence company Pet Playgrounds – claim approximately 1.2 million dogs are hit and killed by cars every year in the country, the equivalent of almost 3300 a day.
 
Hmm Obviously the dogs are just out roaming, not being kept safely behind a fence.
 
after driving around Western NSW these past few weeks, the amount of road kill is stunning.
Emus, Roos, goats, wild pigs, sheep, beef cattle, snakes, birds (including a wedge tail eagle), they will have plenty of critters to test the software on.
Mick
 

Knock on wood, my worst incident with wildlife was a rabbit and a few nice. I travel on country roads quite a bit, trying to avoid dusk and dawn when the roos like to spot vehicles and play games
 
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