Pretty much destroys the case for someone off-grid. Great for the mainstream power companies.

I’ll stick with my diesel Ute for long distance; maybe invest in a horse and buggy for short.

This is the biggest challenge facing EV large scale roll out in parallel with RE large scale roll out. The two are working together well.

I think most would agree most EV's will be charged at night in the owners home when not in use. For apartment occupiers, perhaps there will be other options such as charging at work etc etc, but by and large charging at night and I think future apartments will have options to charge in carparks as well, either trickle charge in their own space or simply charging stations for rapid charge.

Right now, Aussie has about 2000-3000MW of coal fired power available at night that is turned down through lack of demand,  this could easily be used to charge around 100,000 EV's each night.

Go to RE
To charge a car at night
Solar generates during day, so need to charge a battery to charge a battery

Wind, fairly similar

RE generation costs are dropping and heading towards the ball park of coal, but only when you use the power when its available, but as soon as you switch from non-dispatchable to dispatchable mode RE is costly and hence operating costs of EV is also more costly!

And this whole autonomous-car thing has a serious problem by the way:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/uber-suspends-self-driving-car-tests-after-fatal-crash/9565586

And this whole autonomous-car thing has a serious problem by the way:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/uber-suspends-self-driving-car-tests-after-fatal-crash/9565586

The driverless thing is a worry when mixed in with driven cars, pedestrians, cyclists.

Assuming the deceased pedestrian/cyclist is found to be blameless, I wonder who gets charged with the driving offence.

The technology needs to be 100% and even then err on the side of caution.

Then there are all the driving laws that need to be changed. Imagine what happens with a Speed Camera fine - who does the owner nominate as the driver for instance.

And this whole autonomous-car thing has a serious problem by the way:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/uber-suspends-self-driving-car-tests-after-fatal-crash/9565586

The driverless thing is a worry when mixed in with driven cars, pedestrians, cyclists.

Assuming the deceased pedestrian/cyclist is found to be blameless, I wonder who gets charged with the driving offence.

I'm sure Uber and their lawyers will try their best to apportion blame to someone else (i.e the cyclist), or cover-up/accidentally delete the evidence.

Whoever designed the software, or perhaps a hardware failure are responsible?  Or even the Directors of Uber for letting these cars loose?

Anyway, back to the Electric Cars.

Assuming that the Cost comes down (as it has for the Hybrid's) over time, and that the ability to recharge when away from home becomes commonplace, then yes, I see no reason why not.

As it stands right now, if I was purely driving around the local area and thus able to not have to recharge when away from home, it is quite realistic.

But the thought of a trip from say Melbourne to Sydney (870km) means finding at least one place along the route to recharge, and not have to wait hours to do that due to charging time, or the wait for my turn. Then of course there is the issue of the Retail cost of same.

Give it time - those older can remember the days of a trip between Melbourne and Sydney needing at least 2-3 fuel stops, not to mention finding somewhere to get fuel after dark or on a Sunday - which was common outside major cities and off major highways.

One other thing - slow moving Electric Cars are pretty much silent, and pedestrians in carparks etc may not know you are approaching, thus the horn needs some tapping.

At the moment - NOTHING.
There is nowhere to charge it at Mundrabilla.

The law requiring driving any sort of vehicle is simple. The driver not the computer is accountable, that's why he is there.

Watching a comparison between Tesla and Merc auto drives on a loop around San Fransico Bay in all sorts of road conditions. The Tesla craps over the Merc which looked like it only looked at road every 0.5sec as the car wandered in the lane.

Note both companies have labelled their auto drive as driver assist technology and pulled previous adverts saying it was auto drive.

The TV crew voted Tesla as the one who is making their lawyers sweat and challenging the current standards.

Give it time - those older can remember the days of a trip between Melbourne and Sydney needing at least 2-3 fuel stops, not to mention finding somewhere to get fuel after dark or on a Sunday - which was common outside major cities and off major highways.

One other thing - slow moving Electric Cars are pretty much silent, and pedestrians in carparks etc may not know you are approaching, thus the horn needs some tapping.

The younger amongst us would find it hard to believe that at night you buy sufficient petrol to get you to your next stop at a coin only self serve. A few florins (or 20c pieces) would buy you plenty of fuel.

The silent electric cars are indeed difficult for pedestrians. Last year during a couple of months in Scandinavia, wandering around towns and cities their presence sometimes came as a surprise, without any sound to warn you of their approach.

Right now, Aussie has about 2000-3000MW of coal fired power available at night that is turned down through lack of demand,  this could easily be used to charge around 100,000 EV's each night.

So, to keep the EV's running and, indeed, multiplying, we have to burn more coal?

Does anyone here have experience, knowledge or even thoughts about the hybrids, and their future?

Hybrids still have a future. In fact in Australia hybrid cars have lower average CO2 emissions than grid-charged EVs - unless you live in hydro-plentiful Tassie.
Hybrids have some interesting advantages over conventional Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. Ford is currently developing a hybrid F-150 with a very beefy inverter that runs straight off the hybrid drivertrain, eliminating the need to mount a large stand-alone generator in the tray for running power tools or other electric appliances. There are conventional utes already on the market that have smaller inverters (like the current model Ranger), but they're in the

Give it time - those older can remember the days of a trip between Melbourne and Sydney needing at least 2-3 fuel stops, not to mention finding somewhere to get fuel after dark or on a Sunday - which was common outside major cities and off major highways.

One other thing - slow moving Electric Cars are pretty much silent, and pedestrians in carparks etc may not know you are approaching, thus the horn needs some tapping.

The younger amongst us would find it hard to believe that at night you buy sufficient petrol to get you to your next stop at a coin only self serve. A few florins (or 20c pieces) would buy you plenty of fuel.

The silent electric cars are indeed difficult for pedestrians. Last year during a couple of months in Scandinavia, wandering around towns and cities their presence sometimes came as a surprise, without any sound to warn you of their approach.

Ah yes, I forgot about the "Self Service" then...a coin operated pump. And "Super" (in 1970) at around 25cents a gallon (less than 10c / Litre). Fill an average Holden or Ford tank for under $5.

Right now, Aussie has about 2000-3000MW of coal fired power available at night that is turned down through lack of demand,  this could easily be used to charge around 100,000 EV's each night.

So, to keep the EV's running and, indeed, multiplying, we have to burn more coal?

Mostly yes! If however you can charge your car during the day and have a big enough roof, then you could achieve the RE dream!

And this whole autonomous-car thing has a serious problem by the way:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-20/uber-suspends-self-driving-car-tests-after-fatal-crash/9565586

The driverless thing is a worry when mixed in with driven cars, pedestrians, cyclists.

Assuming the deceased pedestrian/cyclist is found to be blameless, I wonder who gets charged with the driving offence.

I'm sure Uber and their lawyers will try their best to apportion blame to someone else (i.e the cyclist), or cover-up/accidentally delete the evidence.

Whoever designed the software, or perhaps a hardware failure are responsible?  Or even the Directors of Uber for letting these cars loose?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/self-driving-uber-crash-arizona/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=1sig&utm_campaign=One%20Signal


Video from the incident, I guess make your own mind up if a non-automated vehicle would have been any different?

I will buy electric:

• Price is comparable with fossil fuel engine cars, but will be happy to pay a slight premium for slight performance improvement. Eg like there is already for a SUV diesel engine over the same SUV petrol engine version.
• Able to recharge less than 15 min for a 600km to 800km trip (takes me 5 min for my current diesel vehicle, I can reach 1000km at the moment, but happy for 600km).
• Able to have a range of a comparable petrol driven car
• Mains power that contains more renewable (recognising that we will need fossil fuel mains power for some time) OR refuelling stations that are 100% renewable energy sourced locally.
• The big one, non heavy metal batteries.

The last point is a major issue. As production ramps up we are about to pull out more Li from the ground. What the hell will happen to all these batteries when they become life expired. 80 years from now we will have a our new head scratching what the hell do we do with this Li. At the moment I can assure you despite the high price tag for these, the price does NOT include the embedded decommissioning cost for them. You bet your bottom dollar you as a ratepayer will be expected to pay for that as a community. I am pleased to read that Tesla's intention is to turn the car life expired batteries into home battery packs for solar, but ultimately these will fail. What then?

I am excited that research is into batteries using graphite (carbon based). Ultimately if they can achieve superior performance, it will be easier to reprocess after life expiry.

At the moment as far as I am concerned, electric car drivers are ignorant that they will create the next wave pollutants for the next generation to manage. They have not paid for disposal and will expect that those costs will be socialised by the community for their choice. Car manufacturers as the producers, should be held accountable now for their plans for the life expiry management of these batteries and ensure that the purchase (or lease costs) include the post usage costs for these batteries.

I acknowledge the upside in that the battery life is excellent, but it is deferring this wave of environmental issues, as once again we kick a waste issue down the road for the next generation to deal with it.

So as you can see I wont be buying an electric car in the next 20 years, as I doubt graphite will be in a mass manufacturing form at an economical price point in the next 20 years

Yes you can say about the same thing with petrol and diesel vehicles with pollution, but at least there are efforts to improve pollution performance and as a society we are conscious of it. It is really a matter of our government policy reflects what our society is prepared to accept at the time.

At the moment batteries are not being discussed at all as a society. There are NO government policies on this and the manufacturers of course while not being held accountable are ignoring that gap. There should be producers stewardship policies in place for this. That is a consumer pays the embedded disposal costs upfront. Not get the shock at the end.

Of course if that was applied then the economics for these so called green vehicles will probably require another generation of R&D to truly accommodate their true lifecycle costs.

So until then, I think EV owners are either ignorant, like that the rest of the community will pick up the tab for their mess and that the manufacturers are immoral with their marketing spin. But hey, they are car sellers, so nothing changed there, right?

By the way, if I am ignorant in that there are systems in place to decommission Li batteries that is commercially occurring in Australia (as opposed to research, trial, exporting to Asia to send our pollution for them to pollute there), please provide me the links or where I can find that information I would love to know that to improve my knowledge in that. I would appreciate it, as I do accept I can be off the mark on that. then I might change my view.

Interesting points.

Realistically most people are buying an EV due to emotion, not environment nor economic and Musk and others are cashing in on this. The issue with the used batteries is known, however I do suspect they will be alot more than landfill once supply of the used batteries ramps up. Difficult to build an industry on almost no supply.

Even if all EV's are charged on coal fired power, the EV's in the inner city and suburbs will I think dramatically improve suburbia living just through being quieter and less inner city emissions. I also suspect some countries will be using EV's to reduce oil imports to help their balance of trade and weaken the OPEC cartel, although it was weakened from its previous monopoly position years ago. Alot more countries today have gas reserves they didn't know they had 30-40 years ago, plus progressive roll out of RE energy.

Also reading many of the responses above, some posters have previously expressed their views on RE and EV's and I get the feeling while some are rock solid on coal must go to be replaced with the still evolving wind and solar industry with current lack of realistic options for storage (outside buying batteries on large scale) and acceptance of higher power costs, their responses towards buying an EV was very different. ie "Not buying an EV unless it meets this list of conditions and same price".

I'd like to get an EV, novality value mainly, but also some practicality such that the car is always full first thing in AM which in Dubai is a bonus as no petrol stations. While other demand 5-15min refueling time, an EV off long distance driving has potential to deliver 0min as it is charged over night and waiting 30min for a 0 to 80% charge once in a while on a rare long haul drive is a minor destraction. Unfortunately the models that fit the "normal" look are expensive, now.

Hybrid's, yes I think they are here to stay, but I suspect the trend will be away from what we know today towards an EV with an option of a Genset, pretty much like a PHEV but a bit different, larger battery and electric motor which is the sole source of traction. No more large scale traction Internal combustion engine and complex mechanical drive train. A 20-40kW genset running at const speed for max efficiency as required by the battery and can be installed anywhere in the car just hooked up to the battery operating automatically as required or by manual intervention and hence very compact. I think this will mean the car manufacturers are making just one model of car of a specific size/purpose, an EV with the option of internal combustion booster at the expense of boot/bonnet space.

Hybrids kill companies?

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-hybrid.html

Hybrids kill companies?

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-hybrid.html

Hi,
Thanks for sharing

This is interesting and I tend to agree with most of it.

However while I agree Toyota are dragging their feet a bit, Toyota is also known for being a robust supplier of long last high production quality cars that typically retain their price better than most of their competition, but not cars that have all the latest bells and whistles.

That said I think the market will see the EV introduced by Toyota finally as a reliable robust product. Additionally by the time Toyota brings the EV to market, the market will be more eager to accept and more mature and suited with charging stations etc and by the time they do bring it to market, the cost of the EV technology will be closer to Toyota's market. Tesla S and X are aimed at high end market that is not part of the Toyota Brand target audience, but I suppose it is Lexus!

I suppose the bottom line for the likes of Toyota has not having an EV on the market cost them market share and the answer is unlikely, so far! Many of the EV cars on market, such as the US$35k Chev BOLT are reportedly actually loosing money for their manufacturers. Of course how much as Tesla spent on the Model 3, which if they don't get production up could see actually drive Tesla go under.

Tesla has been having heaps of production issues. Sometimes 'industry disruption' is just a thinly-disguised Silicon Valley arrogance...

Tesla has been having heaps of production issues. Sometimes 'industry disruption' is just a thinly-disguised Silicon Valley arrogance...

Interesting, but note they compare against Toyota, not the American Auto Makers which historically have much lower quality standards compared to Toyota which basically invented Quality control for car makers and their systems are used in manufacturing world over.

Also of interest is they said they bought the factor but not the people who knew how to make cars. This is incorrect or at least not fully correct, it was reported that Tesla recruited a number of key people from the Australian Auto industry as it closed down as well as head hunted others in US and world wide. There are other car assembly plants that closed in recent years, I think Belgium also lost its only production line left. Rather than buy the worlds leading car assembling line equipment, Tesla actually bought the German company.

However, if Tesla is indeed dumping cars to the back lot incomplete on a large scale, this is a pathway to failure as this is exactly what Rover did, at one stage making cars with no gear boxes as the supply chain was interrupted and what was supposed to be a few days supply turned into weeks.

Hybrids have killed LPG. In Dubai a Camry Taxi pulls 600km to a tank, but Hybrid does 1000km on Dubai's mostly highway style roads. The Plug in hybrids have a larger battery (I think) and in Sri Lanka where we stayed the Manager was using a Plug in Hybrid to to drivea Mitsubishi 4x4 too from work, charging at both ends. But it was about 5-10km drive I think, meanwhile is petrol/diesel tank needed filling about once a month.

Many of the taxis in Melbourne are LPG Hybrids. I don't think that Hybrids killed LPG, I think rising conversion costs and LPG prices did. LPG isn't worth it for the average driver, but for taxis who are always on the road the savings are enough that LPG still makes sense, even in a hybrid.

There is no way I will buy an electric car when I can buy a reliable 15-20 year old Japanese 4 cylinder for about $4000. Why anyone bothers to buy a new car at all is a mystery to me.

There is no way I will buy an electric car when I can buy a reliable 15-20 year old Japanese 4 cylinder for about $4000. Why anyone bothers to buy a new car at all is a mystery to me.

Exactly, why anyone would spend that much on a car is beyond me. 15 years ago I purchased a Peugot 504 diesel for $1500 dollars, it did 400,000 kilometres over 10 years, with only around $2000 dollars spent on repairs over that time (Note 1). The fuel consumption was 11kk/L (9L/100k, 50mpg) at 80kph and 10.5km/l, (43mpg) at 100kph.

Note 1: I am a very capable mechanic (I am/was a complex systems technician) and do do all my own maintence, I realise quite few cannot or do not wish to do there own maintence.

woodford

eerr Woodford, dunno if your fuel economy numbers are right old chap.

There is no way I will buy an electric car when I can buy a reliable 15-20 year old Japanese 4 cylinder for about $4000. Why anyone bothers to buy a new car at all is a mystery to me.
Exactly, why anyone would spend that much on a car is beyond me. 15 years ago I purchased a Peugot 504 diesel for $1500 dollars, it did 400,000 kilometres over 10 years, with only around $2000 dollars spent on repairs over that time (Note 1). The fuel consumption was 11kk/L (9L/100k, 50mpg) at 80kph and 10.5km/l, (43mpg) at 100kph.

Note 1: I am a very capable mechanic (I am/was a complex systems technician) and do do all my own maintence, I realise quite few cannot or do not wish to do there own maintence.

woodford

Most of the high end EV's are more than a car with electric traction, they are statement cars that leave petrol heads in their humming wake. At the other end of the scale is micro cars more useful for inner suburban/city.

The likes of the Model 3 and Bolt are about those in new mid priced small to mid sized car market. If you have $40k to spend on either as an alternative to petrol equivalent you are not looking at 10-15 year old cars.