Electric Vehicles

PauSum

PauSum

Forum Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2008
Messages
321
Location
Perth Australia
Car Year
2005 and 2015
Car Model
Forester and Outback
Transmission
5 speed manual and 6 speed CVT
With petrol prices getting higher and higher; together with more vehicle choices to choose from. Will you consider EV ( both fully electric and hybrid) as your next car to purchase; and:
1 - why
2 - which vehicle will be your choice if you'll consider this as an options?
 
No.

  • FAR too expensive
  • Limited lifespan of (highly expensive) batteries
  • NOT "non-polluting" (what a joke! And a con ... )
  • Poor range combined with long recharge time.

Etc, etc.

BTW, we have installed an 8 kW solar system that powers our air conditioners and heat pump pool heater. That was sensible, both monetarily and environmentally.
 
it doesnt matter rly what you think or what you want... we all will go to that .. there wont be a choice.. and there wont be point to not to switch.
long range petrol car.. ? i put mostly 10l petrol and 20l of LPG in car for local driving ... for longest country trips i maybe put then 30l of LPG rly never more. never. so all that is just subjective.
H6 engine with its co2 numbers will have so large taxes from 2025 that i rly wont wanna keep it any longer i think.
electric wagon/SUV on AWD yes any day give it to me for decent price.
but thats for other "normal" people out there... i live from salary to salary with spending everything and even getting into minus money over month here
 
eventually yes but I feel the infrastructure isn't mature enough yet here in good ol WA, unless all the driving you do is within the metro area
 
lefty said:
eventually yes but I feel the infrastructure isn't mature enough yet here in good ol WA, unless all the driving you do is within the metro area
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And it's never likely to be in a country as large and so sparsely populated as Australia. We have (roughly) eight people per square mile. Most of these people live in only five cities.

Population density in the EU is roughly 300 people per square mile ....

The idea of waiting 8 hours (plus waiting time ... ) at Narrabri to recharge is ridiculous.

Melbourne to Brisbane is about 1,700 kms, with no major towns along the way. Brisbane to Townsville is about 2,000 kms with two relatively major towns (Rockhampton and Mackay) in between.

Many places are more than 500 kms between petrol stations. These are 'major' roads. Forget about minor roads.

There will be a place for metro 'shopping prams', and an even greater place for hybrids with a decent size petrol tank.

John Cadogan designed a sensible, affordable 'shopping pram', and rightly stated that it will never be made. It would have cost less than half the price of the cheapest current EV, and had a cheaply replaceable battery.

None of the protagonists for EVs ever mention that they have a total life expectancy of ~5 years. The average life expectancy of a ICE vehicle is over 15 years. My 2006 Forester will probably last me for the rest of my life. It currently has ~120K on the clock.
 
and a gen set in the boot - running on petrol of course! :rolleyes:
 
Yes I have often wondered why car roof panels are not solar panels. A smaller ICE and a larger battery would possibly do the trick. And encourage owners, such as I, to keep their steeds cleaner.
 
Cadogan discusses exactly why roof panels will not work with EVs ...

Basically, not enough juice.

Our 8 kW panels cover around 20-30 sq.m. of our roof.
 
ateday said:
Have to be a BIG car and much better solar efficiency.
Click to expand...
Yes. It's actually 24 panels, each about 1.5m^2. i.e. 36m^2. They are already at about 98+% efficiency (!!).

At our latitude, they have effective output from about 0900-1700H at the summer solstice. By effective, I mean 1.5 kW. By about 0930H, the output rises to around 3-4 kW.

They are terrific, but no magic bullet until Snowy Hydro #2 is completed, and whole lots of other, smaller pumped hydro schemes. There is one at Wivenhoe dam in SE Queensland, and one other that I can't remember.

Snowy Hydro #2 will have sufficient storage to supply 3.8M premises for a week.

In the Australian context, effective, affordable EVs are quite a way off.
 
PauSum said:
With petrol prices getting higher and higher; together with more vehicle choices to choose from. Will you consider EV ( both fully electric and hybrid) as your next car to purchase; and:
1 - why
2 - which vehicle will be your choice if you'll consider this as an options?
Click to expand...
1 - At the moment, I won't consider any EV with the current battery technology, now that I know that there is an organic alternative that can store power longer than any of the metallic ones. I doubt any of the new or current EVs are designed to take the newer tech, especially OrBat, because of the size of the batteries - they are too small so balance will be off. Besides, battery cell designs are proprietary and only the plugs are standard.

I am also not so sure if the better technology ones are going to be released, at all. I remember in the 1990s that an inventor already made an engine fueled by water. No, it's not steam and ICE but relies on some sort of ionisation to create power.

Everything is about the economy and making big bucks. Lithium is undeniably limited but money still has to be made from mining and processing it. I agree with @Ratbag that you don't really save emissions, especially if the power source is coal and as long as we build with materials that need mining - mining trucks, processing, transport, production, etc. The viewpoint is really different when this EV drive is seen in different scales in geology.

I know petrol prices have skyrocketed but keeping one's current car is still much more cost-effective than selling it and buying an electric one. It's not cost-effective on a human scale and at a national scale. If everyone becomes an EV owner, depending on the efficiency of the power grid, a country will have to snap-open coal power plants to keep up with the demand, just like in the Netherlands.

I just have to live with the rising prices as long as the increase does not equal four cups of barista coffee per month. If the price increase equals 1 cup of barista coffee per month, I will just have to think that it's just one cup of coffee I can give up. It's all relative, I guess.

2 - I will still consider the Toyota-Subaru version just in case EV ownership is going to be mandated today. Toyota and Subaru have been leaders in improving source and production sustainability for quite a while now and Subaru's plants in Japan have had a zero-waste policy since the 1990s - Nothing gets thrown away out of but recycled by themselves. It's doable as I worked in a mine with such policy.
 
I see there's a Audi EV in this years DAKAR - but it has an internal combustion engine to keep the batteries topped up :D
 
The whole fairy tale about EVs is a bit like solar panels.

Every part of solar panels is designed to be fully recyclable, but an article I read stated that 80% of old panels end up in landfill. This is just crazy!

As in so many other ways, our species is by far our own worst enemy ...

@Kevin Excellent point about the Audi. It's a bit hard to fill up an EV with "a couple of gallons of electricity" ...
 
"@Kevin Excellent point about the Audi. It's a bit hard to fill up an EV with "a couple of gallons of electricity"".
It`s those bloody electrons. They are so small and difficult to see to pour into the tank without spilling them.......

"As in so many other ways, our species is by far our own worst enemy ..."
There is little doubt in my mind that HS is the worst and most destructive parasite on this, once lovely, planet.

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