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Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.0%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.6%

  • Yes - preferred over petrol car if price/power/convenience similar

    Votes: 79 39.7%

  • Maybe - preference for neither, only concerned with costs etc

    Votes: 38 19.1%

  • 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 7.0%
  • Total voters
    199
Jump to new
sptrawler said:
if your car can do 1,000klm on a charge, it will be the car to have .....
Distance will be the performance measure of BEV cars IMO.
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I actually don’t think higher range than what is already available is necessary at all, sure a 1000km range would make headlines but almost no one would gain any practical benefit from it.

I mean almost no petrol car gets sold with a 1000km range fuel tank.

As cars got more efficient they didn’t advertise higher range, they reduced the size of the fuel tanks.

Sure 1000km range would allow you to get from Sydney-Brisbane non stop, but you are going to need to stop and pee anyway, so having a car With 500km range at costs $10k less, and charges in 15mins while you stop and pee is going to be more practical.

especially if your daily commute is 400km or less, and you are charging at home, the 1000km battery pack would just be extra baggage and useless bragging rights.

My car only has a stated range of 386km, but it will push out to 450km highway driving, and I haven’t come close to running out of charge even on interstate trips.
 
We know your car is wonderful, a mate has one, he is happy also.
All I was saying is the Chinese putting in lower capacity batteries, may not actually work in their favour.
Sorry if I upset you.o_O
You have bought the best car in the World, you are a legend, are we good.:xyxthumbs
 

Just pointing out that extreme range batteries aren’t necessary or even practical.
 
sptrawler said:
I just hope the Chinese don't do to the car industry, what they have done to every other industry, decimated it with cheap product untill quality product goes out of business.
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Cars are a man thing, money no object for enough blokes to keep the good stuff coming.

Just look at 4x4, working class blokes driving cars worth $80-90k, I bought a basic model only $60k but I am a frugal, less gadgets to go wrong when touring.

I see lots of $80k plus being driven on the beach to go fishing and when outback they are out there with stone chips and pindan all through them.
 
Solar Sponge.

If you're in SA then get used to hearing this term.

The basic structure for Residential Time Of Use pricing will be:

25% of normal flat rate network price 10am - 3pm aka "Solar Sponge"
50% of normal flat rate network price 1am - 6am
125% of normal flat rate network price at other times

The intent is to push consumers to shift loads using price as the mechanism.

If you have Off Peak Controlled Load installed (eg for water heating, swimming pool heating, EV charging etc) the historic default time has been 23:00 - 07:00 but if you want the 10:00 - 15:00 period added then this is available now for those with any digital meter either manually read or remote read. Just need to ask your retailer (or pester them until they give in more commonly, some aren't being particularly helpful with this). Generally can't be easily done with the old electro-mechanical timers however since they lack the additional set of pins required (could be easily added if someone had kept some spares 50 years ago.....).
 

They might still be stuck to the magnets somewhere...
 
sptrawler said:
Storage, storage, storage, is what is needed.
But I'm sure the consumer will be paying for the storage they are giving, one way or another, you will supply the storage for the large generators.
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Why would it have to be that you would supply to a large generator?
I could imagine a situation where competitive pressure would apply from any entity capable of guaranteeing peaking supply and more.
If you as an electric vehicle owner as a member of a large pool of EV owners, could through an organising peaking supply co-ordinator offer a percentage of battery capacity from your vehicle to be available to feed back into the grid when demand required the dormant capital value of your storage would be unlocked.
The percentage of an indviduals capacity to be available could be varied depending on your need at any time. The size of the overall pool giving a base level for the operator to offer the market. Plus price incentives to members could easily be factored in for periods of high demand.

The SA big battery is rumoured to be returning %30+ return on investment.
So Enel-x, from the ABC link above, is offering off the shelf hardware and software to unlock the capital value of your battery to eliminate the battery aspect of the SA project. What's the ROI then?
I can see a bidding war coming for my latent capacity.

Just another unimagined benefit to the economy invisible to Schmo and the plonkers running joint.
How many Holden's are out there capable of pouring money into your bank account just sitting in the garage? Love'm all you want ... But EV's are the future, near future. The Money dictates.
And some think that Carbon Neutral by 2050 is going to be hard. It will be if you're trying to get there in a Kingswood. And this government looks like a clapped out Belmont.
 
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orr said:
Why would it have to be that you would supply to a large generator?
.
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The Large generators, could be anything from a wind farm, to a solar farm or even maybe a wave generator.
The reasons why they will need storage has been covered endlessly, the reason they would rather install generation rather than storage has also been covered endlessly.
 
Trawler; You haven't comprehended what I've posted and it relation to the ABC link From Rumpole and your reply to it. Not that really matters, more a lesson to me. Are you in the back seat of the Belmont?
 
orr said:
Trawler; You haven't comprehended what I've posted and it relation to the ABC link From Rumpole and your reply to it. Not that really matters, more a lesson to me. Are you in the back seat of the Belmont?
Click to expand...
My appologies, I will re read what you wrote, I have never owned a Belmont owned a HJ Kingswood stn wgn, but the back seat was full of kids.
I see what you are getting at, the people who own electric cars may be able to sell the storage into the grid, that is already there with the import export facility in smart meters.
The only car that has that facility ATM is the Nissan Leaf, but it hasn't been cleared by the electrical standards as compliant with our system as yet, from memory.
I don't know that a pool of cars would be feasable, unless they were in one area, as in say a retirement village, but a very interesting thought.
The problem with pooling cars, remote from each other would be metering and ensuring all are available when required or contracted to be available.
The retirement village would work well with a large communal battery and supplemented by everyone's car when at home, and all units and communal buildings having solar.
With regard batteries in general, they are still expensive and the payback wont stack up for a long time, that is why there are a lot more wind/solar farms than batteries in the system, if they were viable the owners of the farms would be throwing them in.
Instead they are screaming for a Gov plan, so the taxpayer can buy them.
Just my thoughts.
 
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SirRumpole said:
How electric vehicles could lower energy costs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02...t-lower-energy-costs-aemc-paper-says/11990024
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On the flip side is this article, very interesting times ahead.
https://www.drive.com.au/news/elect...ia-s-energy-supply-123309.html?trackLink=SMH1
From the article:
“Electric vehicles will boost demand for electricity and could have a big impact on the energy market," AEMC Commission Acting Chief Executive Suzanne Falvi said.
“Sales of electric vehicles increased by more than 200 per cent between 2018 and 2019 and we need to lock in lower cost ways to support consumers who want them."

The report cited one charging station with eight chargers built in Adelaide in 2017, which was "equivalent to the connection of 100 new homes".

"If a vehicle is being charged at a more rapid rate, it requires a similar amount of electricity to a house and if you consider that there will 12 million electric vehicles by 2040, that’s like 12 million houses," said Peter Colacino, chief of policy and research at Infrastructure Australia.

Harry Hamann, CEO of charging installation company GET Electric, said his business regularly encountered developers who were unaware of the demands electric car charging could place on energy supply.

"One of the issues in this building we’re working on at the moment is the amount of power they have available – it sounds like a lot, but it's running lifts, lighting, air con etc. So the building doesn’t have capacity to provide any more energy and we could burn the substation down," Mr Hamann said.

He claimed the risks are high: "The developers and body corps we’re dealing with don’t really realise it’s an issue until we tell them. It will be like the Pink Batts cladding issue, once a couple of buildings go up in flames they’ll do something.

"As a result, our chargers have automatic load management, so if demand gets too high, like when all the air con is on, the chargers will throttle back – how we notify owners we’re still not entirely sure about."

Mr Colacino said while he's not sure buildings will go up in flames, we're likely to see the kind of complications Broadband users see when everyone starts streaming Netflix shows at the same time.

"It’s the distribution part of the network - the substations that will come under pressure because there will be this extra demand on top of the established grid," Mr Colacino said.

Which kind of goes back to what we have been talking about, that it will be easy to get the cart before the horse.
Anyone can have a plan, untill they get hit in the face, going off half cocked is worse than doing nothing. IMO
If you are going to do this, do it once and do it right, lives will depend on it.
From the article it sounds as though standard charging protocols are on the agenda hooray.
When was Labor saying, that half the cars in Australia would be electric, sounds familiar doesn't it. Nothing wrong with the policy, it is the detail that is lacking.
Just my opinion. But a great well written article, worth reading in full.
 
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