Are you preparing to buy an electric car yet?
With the proposed phasing out of fossil fuel powered transport, how much thought have you put into what you will be driving in the run up to the phasing out?
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zonavar68 · 56-60, M
No.They're impractical for almost all of Australia currently.
And EV utes/4wd's are totally stupid and useless as they cannot get more than about 150 km of range towing a 3-ish tonne load before requiring a 3 to 4 hour recharge stop. note there are currently no EV utes/4wd's available here.
If the F150 lightning was here you'd see so many of them stopped on the side of the road with fully discharged battery modules after trying to tow their 3.5 tonne aluminium mobile toilet/shower/kitchen/bedroom or huge boat or big horse float and dying before reaching the next EV public recharge point that is actually working, and things like EV ute/4wd and trucks will require *massive* capacity recharging facilities totally off the scale of what exists now to 'fast charge' EV cars.
Stuff like that just does not exist anywhere in Australia yet.
This is why the Telsa Semi is still a joke product and the Cybertruck is even more of a joke product. Practical realities of Australia ruin their viability instantly.
You need to drive an EV car about half a million miles to reach 'enviromental parity' with the 'costs' of the inputs to make them even with zero tailpipe emissions, so EV's are not 'clean and green'.
And EV utes/4wd's are totally stupid and useless as they cannot get more than about 150 km of range towing a 3-ish tonne load before requiring a 3 to 4 hour recharge stop. note there are currently no EV utes/4wd's available here.
If the F150 lightning was here you'd see so many of them stopped on the side of the road with fully discharged battery modules after trying to tow their 3.5 tonne aluminium mobile toilet/shower/kitchen/bedroom or huge boat or big horse float and dying before reaching the next EV public recharge point that is actually working, and things like EV ute/4wd and trucks will require *massive* capacity recharging facilities totally off the scale of what exists now to 'fast charge' EV cars.
Stuff like that just does not exist anywhere in Australia yet.
This is why the Telsa Semi is still a joke product and the Cybertruck is even more of a joke product. Practical realities of Australia ruin their viability instantly.
You need to drive an EV car about half a million miles to reach 'enviromental parity' with the 'costs' of the inputs to make them even with zero tailpipe emissions, so EV's are not 'clean and green'.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@zonavar68 I accept the lack of charging facilities, their reliability doubts and huge distances; but you can't condemn battery-electric cars for not being capable of tasks for which they probably not intended - very heavy leisure towing over very long distances.
Such battery off-road / towing cars that do exist are more likely aimed at building-sites, quarries and farms with proper, industrial, high-rate chargers installed; not towing absurdly large caravans or boats across a continent with huge distances between towns.
The outcome you suggest would not be the fault of the vehicles, but of buyers not properly investigating their suitability for the chosen purposes!
I do agree though with your comment about them being not as "green" made out, though I doubt your figure of 500 000 miles. It does depend heavily too on the way in which the bulk of the nation's electricity is generated.
Such battery off-road / towing cars that do exist are more likely aimed at building-sites, quarries and farms with proper, industrial, high-rate chargers installed; not towing absurdly large caravans or boats across a continent with huge distances between towns.
The outcome you suggest would not be the fault of the vehicles, but of buyers not properly investigating their suitability for the chosen purposes!
I do agree though with your comment about them being not as "green" made out, though I doubt your figure of 500 000 miles. It does depend heavily too on the way in which the bulk of the nation's electricity is generated.
zonavar68 · 56-60, M
@ArishMell I don't know what it's like across the USA but here in Australia households that can afford rooftop solar and/or batteries are 10x more likely to consider electric vehicles as an option because they are already 'sucked into' the greenwashing debate via their pre-existing investments in so-called 'renewable' energy. Energy is only ever transformed - neither created nor destroyed. As humans we don't have the knowledge or understanding to 'control' the amount of energy present in the matter of the universe (humans are part of that matter). Rooftop solar + batteries + electric vehicles are quickly becoming a 'have' (ie. elite) vs 'have not' (ie. proletariat pleb) issue here, and I expect that'll be the case in most so-called 1st-world economies.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@zonavar68 Thank you. A thought provoking response.....
I do know the basic properties of energy but I wonder how may politicians etc, know it, or come to that, know the difference and relationship between energy and power. I suspect some imagine they are the same thing!
I'm in the UK not USA, but although we don't have the vast distances common to Australia and America, range and charger availability are still serious problems. Elsewhere, Hippie Joe has outlined the problems of owning a battery-electric car in his Canada; but they might also apply in some parts of the British Isles such as the Highlands of Scotland.
However, the matter here in Britain is not as heavily politicised along Party lines as in the States. All parties agree on the basics and aims, and simply argue on how to get there - and how to pay for it.
Nor is there a sort of class-warfare aspect to having solar panels and the like. Those simply come down to affordability plus technical feasibility.
What we do have though, in Britain, is vast numbers of homes where if you can afford solar panels on the roof and it is worth fitting them anyway, there is nowhere to park a battery-powered car to recharge it! It's thought anything from a third to half of British motorists are in that situation.
I am one, living in an early-20C terraced house with a very narrow front garden, in a narrow street built long before car ownership became something more than a status-symbol for the wealthy few. Others live in blocks of flats with limited parking, flats above town centre shops with no nearby parking, modern housing-estates that ape the 19C style of terraced homes with no front gardens, or in homes built on hill-slopes giving nowhere to park against the house anyway.
However, I don't see owning a battery car becoming a status symbol of the haves over the have-nots, here, but I do see many people in future simply being unable to afford a car.
I do know the basic properties of energy but I wonder how may politicians etc, know it, or come to that, know the difference and relationship between energy and power. I suspect some imagine they are the same thing!
I'm in the UK not USA, but although we don't have the vast distances common to Australia and America, range and charger availability are still serious problems. Elsewhere, Hippie Joe has outlined the problems of owning a battery-electric car in his Canada; but they might also apply in some parts of the British Isles such as the Highlands of Scotland.
However, the matter here in Britain is not as heavily politicised along Party lines as in the States. All parties agree on the basics and aims, and simply argue on how to get there - and how to pay for it.
Nor is there a sort of class-warfare aspect to having solar panels and the like. Those simply come down to affordability plus technical feasibility.
What we do have though, in Britain, is vast numbers of homes where if you can afford solar panels on the roof and it is worth fitting them anyway, there is nowhere to park a battery-powered car to recharge it! It's thought anything from a third to half of British motorists are in that situation.
I am one, living in an early-20C terraced house with a very narrow front garden, in a narrow street built long before car ownership became something more than a status-symbol for the wealthy few. Others live in blocks of flats with limited parking, flats above town centre shops with no nearby parking, modern housing-estates that ape the 19C style of terraced homes with no front gardens, or in homes built on hill-slopes giving nowhere to park against the house anyway.
However, I don't see owning a battery car becoming a status symbol of the haves over the have-nots, here, but I do see many people in future simply being unable to afford a car.