Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

Electric cars?

Would you buy an electric car?

  • Already own one

    Votes: 10 5.1%

  • Yes - would definitely buy

    Votes: 43 21.9%

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

    Votes: 78 39.8%

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

    Votes: 37 18.9%

  • No - prefer petrol car even if electric car has same price, power and convenience

    Votes: 24 12.2%

  • No - would never buy one

    Votes: 14 7.1%
  • Total voters
    196
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SirRumpole said:
What's the point of fast with speed cameras and cop cars everywhere ?
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acceleration is fun and practical, not to mention the 1000 km range of the roadster.

being able to go Quietly from 0 to 100km in 1.9 seconds is not only fun but certainly makes pulling out into gaps in traffic and over taking etc a breeze.

Even my model 3 kicks my old commodore to the curb when it comes to merging into traffic from a stand still.

you just put your foot down and in a few seconds you are doing 100kms and hour and you don’t have to rely on the traffic slowing to let you get back on the highway.

hoping back into a slower car feels like your trying to merge into traffic in a horse and cart.
 
Also, my god, tesla's run over the past five days...
 
Value Collector said:
being able to go Quietly from 0 to 100km in 1.9 seconds
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I do see a potential safety issue with something which makes minimal noise and rapidly accelerates.

It's not something that most think about but the whole road environment at present, things light sight distances and speed limits and so on, are all ultimately set up based around present day cars, trucks and buses and their performance.

If cars driven on public streets become capable of accelerating more rapidly or make no noise then that does have some implications.

I note that some countries already have requirements for minimum noise levels from EV's which are above that which an EV naturally makes, so manufacturers are required to intentionally make it louder. :2twocents
 
Smurf1976 said:
My underlying thought there is that I see no real reason why transport needs to be hugely taxed. Yes governments spend money on roads but then they also spend money on all sorts of things and we don't have special taxes on all those other things to fund the associated expenditure.
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Definitely.

It makes the argument for the diesel fuel rebate for example ludicrous. "Farmers and miners don't use their diesel vehicles on the road so they should get a refund of the fuel excise". The fact is that fuel excise doesn't just get used on roads, so these farmers and miners are taking money away from schools, hospitals, armed forces and universities and whatever else the government spends money on.

Beats me how they have gotten away with it for so long. (It doesn't really, that's what they donate money to political parties for).
 
Chronus:

Yeah I'm waiting for a dip to buy into tesla. I was hoping that it might be today but traders liked the economic data more than the spike in virus data. Another couple of weeks of crappy virus data and it should probably be time to buy - maybe next friday or the one following.

Stimulus is still a couple of weeks away if not the end of the month. Need to get in before then. There should be a lot of bad virus data over the weekend so maybe even this coming monday.
 
Smurf1976 said:
I do see a potential safety issue with something which makes minimal noise and rapidly accelerates.

It's not something that most think about but the whole road environment at present, things light sight distances and speed limits and so on, are all ultimately set up based around present day cars, trucks and buses and their performance.

If cars driven on public streets become capable of accelerating more rapidly or make no noise then that does have some implications.

I note that some countries already have requirements for minimum noise levels from EV's which are above that which an EV naturally makes, so manufacturers are required to intentionally make it louder. :2twocents
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Funny you mention that, when the wife and I take the grankids to school, we make a point of telling them that with electric cars you will have to look, as you wont hear them.
My guess is some form of noise generator will have to be installed by the manufacturer, whether it is PIR, radar activated or constantly on will be interesting.
 
Smurf1976 said:
I do see a potential safety issue with something which makes minimal noise and rapidly accelerates.

It's not something that most think about but the whole road environment at present, things light sight distances and speed limits and so on, are all ultimately set up based around present day cars, trucks and buses and their performance.

If cars driven on public streets become capable of accelerating more rapidly or make no noise then that does have some implications.

I note that some countries already have requirements for minimum noise levels from EV's which are above that which an EV naturally makes, so manufacturers are required to intentionally make it louder. :2twocents
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you don’t have to go from 0-100 in 1.9 seconds at every green light, but it sure does help to have the capability in your back pocket.

I think people will learn to prefer quiet cars over noisy ones, At the moment you can hear a rev head from 5 blocks away when he guns it at the lights.

At 10.30 at night when I am trying to concentrate on my X-Men film and drink my hot choclate I can tell you I wish their were more electric cars.
 
SirRumpole said:
You may be required to wave a red flag and sound your horn whenever you see a pedestrian. :D
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or people can just do as we were taught as kids and look both ways.

In reality electric cars still make a Tyre noise, and air resistance noise as they pass by, that’s all you really need.
 
Value Collector said:
or people can just do as we were taught as kids and look both ways.

In reality electric cars still make a Tyre noise, and air resistance noise as they pass by, that’s all you really need.
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Unless people are hard of hearing.

It's the law that vehicles give way to pedestrians and drivers are always responsible if a pedestrian gets hit by a vehicle.
 
Value Collector said:
you don’t have to go from 0-100 in 1.9 seconds at every green light, but it sure does help to have the capability in your back pocket.

I think people will learn to prefer quiet cars over noisy ones, At the moment you can hear a rev head from 5 blocks away when he guns it at the lights.

At 10.30 at night when I am trying to concentrate on my X-Men film and drink my hot choclate I can tell you I wish their were more electric cars.
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From a purely personal perspective agreed, I'd like a nice quiet environment.

If anyone doubts how noisy internal combustion engines really are then as an exercise just try listening to any radio or podcast talk show on earphones whilst walking down the street. Dead easy in a suburban backstreet but come to any main road and you'll find it completely impossible to follow what they're saying since every passing car drowns it out.

But if I was a visually impaired person or even simply just the elderly, disabled etc then the idea of almost silent cars capable of rapid acceleration would scare me most certainly. OK in the hands of responsible drivers but there's plenty of irresponsible drivers around.

If I were responsible for road safety then I'd be seeing this danger to visually impaired people as a problem that I needed to do something about.

It's one of those things where society has adapted to a negative aspect of technology, that is noise, in a way that has made us somewhat reliant upon that negative aspect always being there.

Some countries have already done it, they've mandated that EV's make noise beyond that which they actually need to make for this reason. That is, they have a minimum permitted noise level whilst in motion.

It's an issue at low speeds primarily. On a highway the tyre and air noise is going to be sufficient and exceeds that of the engine anway. At 40 km/h in the suburbs though, that's where the problem arises since the engine is the only real source of noise in that situation. :2twocents
 
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SirRumpole said:
Unless people are hard of hearing.

It's the law that vehicles give way to pedestrians and drivers are always responsible if a pedestrian gets hit by a vehicle.
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With all the cameras and radar equipment on a Tesla, it probably has a lot less chance of hitting a person.

I think you are over estimating the benefits of noisy engines, and under estimating people’s ability to adapt and The amount of safety features that exist on this new generation of cars.
 
Value Collector said:
With all the cameras and radar equipment on a Tesla, it probably has a lot less chance of hitting a person.

I think you are over estimating the benefits of noisy engines, and under estimating people’s ability to adapt and The amount of safety features that exist on this new generation of cars.
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Well as Smurf said I'm all for quiet, I'd rather not be deafened by loud exhausts. Maybe one of the safety features of EV's should be a warning sound when people are detected in the vicinity.
 
SirRumpole said:
Well as Smurf said I'm all for quiet, I'd rather not be deafened by loud exhausts. Maybe one of the safety features of EV's should be a warning sound when people are detected in the vicinity.
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As I said, I don't feel they need it, they aren't "silent" they do make road noise unless you are really creeping along, they just aren't obnoxious like regular cars are.
 
The minimum noise issue is an important one. People step out from behind things or from between parked cars. The most common impacts prevented would be from low speed, especially where an engine idling lets you know a car is active rather than switched off. In car parks and busy, chaotic situations, unusual situations, alley ways or other situations where vehicular traffic is infrequent, etc etc, an idling sound is an important safety issue. Unusual situations are the ones people tend to get hit in, not just the standard situation of a normal road with normal traffic.
 
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