Who has or is planning to get an electric car / EV Talk

[Tagbert]

EVs mostly charge overnight so they aren't being powered by rooftop solar anyhow, I do have solar but now it's only useful here if you use it up during the day, the FIT you get back is hardly anything.
Good if you work from home while your car is charging maybe, but then add aircon, pool, office, everything else running, rainy days, winter etc etc

I never implied that EVs would be charged by rooftop solar at night. Solar is one part of an overall power supply that would use different power sources at different times of the day. Currently even the most green power supples still use some fossil fuels to supplement baseline power at night. The most carbon intensive source, coal, is being replaced. Natural gas is still a common baseline power source. Longer term the aim is to replace that with a combination of other sources that product less power. Batteries and other ways of short term power storage will hold power produced during the day with solar and release it at night. All of this is in ongoing development and will take decades to fully transition.

The most effective way to use solar is for it to be connected to the grid and incorporated into the overal power supply. Electrons are fungible and you don’t need to charge only from your own solar power to take advantage of solar power.

With all of that an EV will still produce less CO2 than any gasoline car on any power mix and the EV will produce less as the power mix becomes cleaner.

 

[Tagbert]

what happens to the battery when needs replacing?

It’s hard to be too specific as so few EV batteries have failed. Other than the first generation Leaf batteries, most other EV batteries are lasting for the life of the vehicle when driven multiple hundreds of thousands of miles. Some companies are using batteries from wrecked cars as local power stores to buffer those solar panels on your house and provide power during the evening.

There are several companies with early stage project to recycle the materials of the batteries. They can only operate in a small scale so far as so few batteries have completely failed that there is not enough material for large scale operations.

 

[Tagbert]

Outside of Capital city EV use Australia is a long long way behind the rest of the world, due to the size of the country and driving people do, also cost for a good brand name vehicle, the closest Tesla service centre as a example is 4 hours one way and 6 the other for me, and I live in the biggest coastal city between Newcastle and Gold Coast, same goes for the nearest Apple Store lol.
One Tesla charging station with 4 plug ins.
Good luck to you guys that can get by with one and at a good price, here younger people are priced out of the housing market without worrying about a $60K plus EV, most are driving 10 plus year old cars.

Younger people like that have traditionally bought used cars. that is unlikley to change with EVs. As the market expands and more used EVs are available, a lot of those young people will likely buy a nice used EV, even in Australia.

It sounds like EVs are not really ready to meet your specific needs, yet. They are evolving and are likely to do so at some point but we are not there yet. Perhaps you should go on with your life and check back in a few years to see if new developments have brought EVs just a little closer to meeting your needs.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Over 70% of electricity here in NSW is powered by coal daily, not very environmentally friendly charging your car from coal out of the ground.

No it’s not. But still more environmentally friendly than 1000’s of vehicles burning petrol. The science proves that.
Why isn’t there more green energy there? Solar, wind water etc? Strange.

 

[Apple fanboy]

EVs mostly charge overnight so they aren't being powered by rooftop solar anyhow, I do have solar but now it's only useful here if you use it up during the day, the FIT you get back is hardly anything.
Good if you work from home while your car is charging maybe, but then add aircon, pool, office, everything else running, rainy days, winter etc etc

This is sadly true. You pay around 35-45p a unit here. They buy back excess units at around 3.5p. So the only option is to buy a home battery. But that’s just more expensive. If they bought back the excess at 90% of whatever you were paying it would make solar a lot more attractive.

 

[Apple fanboy]

what happens to the battery when needs replacing?

There’s a video I posted a couple of pages back.

 

[Surfsalot]

No it’s not. But still more environmentally friendly than 1000’s of vehicles burning petrol. The science proves that.
Why isn’t there more green energy there? Solar, wind water etc? Strange.

The science lol, where have I heard that lately?? No one wants wind turbines anywhere near them. People are scared of nuclear.

 

[Surfsalot]

This is sadly true. You pay around 35-45p a unit here. They buy back excess units at around 3.5p. So the only option is to buy a home battery. But that’s just more expensive. If they bought back the excess at 90% of whatever you were paying it would make solar a lot more attractive.

A battery is $15k plus here, more than double I paid for the the solar system 6 years ago.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

a 10 hour drive here is nothing, Brisbane to Sydney

Just doing a little reading about EV's in Australia and it seems you guys are pretty well geared out for it. It is still below Europe, but there are only 100k EV's on Australia's roads whereas in the UK alone there are over six ties that amount. Easier for us on a tiny island I know.

Looking at the charging network there, I'd say you could do the route between Brisbane and Sydney in an EV pretty comfortably. There are a few superchargers along that route and you'd most likely have an overnight stay too with a 10 hour drive. The only time you'd really struggle is in the more remote areas of Western Australia and I doubt many venture deep into that very often.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Try $70KAUD with low k's, even with over 300 still in $40K range

https://www.carsales.com.au/cars/details/2017-tesla-model-s-60d-auto-awd/SSE-AD-14972583/?Cr=2

We are quite lucky in the UK with our car prices as we have amongst the cheapest in Europe. Most of my Dutch colleagues comment about this as they pay almost 30% more than us and are amazed at the cars we drive here compared to what they can afford over there. Ireland is horrendous car prices and it used to be the case where people would come across on the ferry to buy a car and export it back, as even with the import tax it would work out cheaper. The reason for our cheaper prices is we have right hand drive vehicles (like Australia) and our export market is much smaller than mainland Europe for secondhand cars.

Tesla recently dropped their prices here by around £4-£5k on new models which has helped their sales. We could have had a Model Y for less money than our Q4 but we were not keen on the aesthetics and lack of physical buttons. I think Tesla are well overdue a face lift of their Model 3's and Y's as the design is 6 years old now. I certainly prefer European styling when it comes to cars.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Topped up my car ready for my trip today. Plugged it in whilst I had breakfast. A lot more convenient than a 10 minute drive to the petrol station and cheaper!

 

[Apple fanboy]

We are quite lucky in the UK with our car prices as we have amongst the cheapest in Europe. Most of my Dutch colleagues comment about this as they pay almost 30% more than us and are amazed at the cars we drive here compared to what they can afford over there. Ireland is horrendous car prices and it used to be the case where people would come across on the ferry to buy a car and export it back, as even with the import tax it would work out cheaper. The reason for our cheaper prices is we have right hand drive vehicles (like Australia) and our export market is much smaller than mainland Europe for secondhand cars.

Tesla recently dropped their prices here by around £4-£5k on new models which has helped their sales. We could have had a Model Y for less money than our Q4 but we were not keen on the aesthetics and lack of physical buttons. I think Tesla are well overdue a face lift of their Model 3's and Y's as the design is 6 years old now. I certainly prefer European styling when it comes to cars.

Couldn’t agree more on the styling. But I’d narrow it down further to German. Not keen on French cars.

 

[Surfsalot]

Just doing a little reading about EV's in Australia and it seems you guys are pretty well geared out for it. It is still below Europe, but there are only 100k EV's on Australia's roads whereas in the UK alone there are over six ties that amount. Easier for us on a tiny island I know.

Looking at the charging network there, I'd say you could do the route between Brisbane and Sydney in an EV pretty comfortably. There are a few superchargers along that route and you'd most likely have an overnight stay too with a 10 hour drive. The only time you'd really struggle is in the more remote areas of Western Australia and I doubt many venture deep into that very often.

Think you might be underestimating the size of Australia, WA is a 5-6 hour flight from the East Coast, Sydney/Brisbane.
Every state of Australia has remote rural areas not just WA.
You can fly to NZ and back in 6 hours from the east coast, or one way to Bali.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Think you might be underestimating the size of Australia, WA is a 5-6 hour flight from the East Coast, Sydney/Brisbane.
Every state of Australia has remote rural areas not just WA.
You can fly to NZ and back in 6 hours from the east coast, or one way to Bali.

Quite possibly, its easy to do when you've never been somewhere. Just like tourists who arrive in London and say they want to visit parts of England, Wales and Scotland, but only have 4 days here lol. It can take 10 hours to drive to Scotland, despite being a fraction of the size of the US or Australia. I am sure its a lot easier to find EV chargers here too in comparison. If EV's are not for you yet, that is understandable.

 

[thettareddast]

what happens to the battery when needs replacing?

The battery gets recycled or repurposed for uses such as home storage.

What happens when car motors needs replacing?

 

[thettareddast]

EVs mostly charge overnight so they aren't being powered by rooftop solar anyhow, I do have solar but now it's only useful here if you use it up during the day, the FIT you get back is hardly anything.
Good if you work from home while your car is charging maybe, but then add aircon, pool, office, everything else running, rainy days, winter etc etc

They have this technology called a battery that stores the energy collected from solar during the day.

Even without a home battery, if you have a house and a car powered by fossil fuel, or a house powered by solar (daytime) and a car by fossil fuel (nightime from grid), which one is net cleaner?

 

[thettareddast]

So my Mrs has a 2 year old Suzuki swift, great little car runs on the smell of an oily rag, was $23KAUD new.
only used for shopping rare trip 100ks or so.
Why would anyone get rid of that and spend $60k on a EV Now or in the future.
Show me how long the payback is? 7,000 kms a year.

Besides the fact that a $60k EV is roomier, safer, more featured, and has 5x the power and performance? gee, can't think why.

A person looking at an iPhone 14 today is comparing it against a Samsung S23, not their iPhone 5 and figuring out the "payback".

 

[Surfsalot]

Quite possibly, its easy to do when you've never been somewhere. Just like tourists who arrive in London and say they want to visit parts of England, Wales and Scotland, but only have 4 days here lol. It can take 10 hours to drive to Scotland, despite being a fraction of the size of the US or Australia. I am sure its a lot easier to find EV chargers here too in comparison. If EV's are not for you yet, that is understandable.

I went from Edinburgh to London by train in my younger days, was 30c day and the train aircon died, fun train trip.

 

[Flowstates]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308170/

is a very neat article

sci-hub it if you cannot access it and sail the high seas.

As for the why behind the lag in energy-transition, I would have to cite the current geo-political turmoil as a driver disrupting an already COVID-19 weakened supply chain.

Chinese factories have been major drivers behind the technology's cost reduction. In my country at the very least (Continental Europe) we are seeing 5-6 months lead time on solar installations because of the low availability of component.

I would also add that in my opinion for a solar installation to be truly practical, it requires a battery to offset the poor buyback rates at peak production*. Hopefully more EV's can provide this capability.

 

[Eric5h5]

Why isn’t there more green energy there? Solar, wind water etc? Strange.

It's happening:

No one wants wind turbines anywhere near them.

Offshore wind exists. Also AU has lots of land where there's nobody around for miles and miles.

Answer for everything lol

Indeed there is. That's why the EV transition is happening. Kick and scream all you want, but facts are facts.

 

[Tagbert]

The science lol, where have I heard that lately?? No one wants wind turbines anywhere near them. People are scared of nuclear.

Some people are just afraid of change and will do anything to delay, obscure, or prevent it. That doesn't mean that the science is wrong or that change is not necessary.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I miss nuclear.... when I first started paying electric bills in 2011 we were paying $.11-$.13/kwhr (100% nuclear) until CA shut down our local nuclear power plant. Now, it's:

Time-Of-Use Residential Rate Plans

Learn about Time-of-Use residential rate plans and why you should switch. Review pricing, options, FAQs and more.

www.sce.com

Despite most of our power from 8am-4pm coming from renewables and/or CNG.

California ISO - Supply, Today's Outlook

View real-time and historical data on generation resources, including renewables, currently on the system.

www.caiso.com

I'm very pro nuclear. This renewables stuff is nice and all but wow it sure makes running the AC in the summer hit the wallet really hard.

 

[Tagbert]

I miss nuclear.... when I first started paying electric bills in 2011 we were paying $.11-$.13/kwhr (100% nuclear) until CA shut down our local nuclear power plant. Now, it's:

View attachment 2253361

Time-Of-Use Residential Rate Plans

Learn about Time-of-Use residential rate plans and why you should switch. Review pricing, options, FAQs and more.

www.sce.com

Despite most of our power from 8am-4pm coming from renewables and/or CNG.

View attachment 2253362 View attachment 2253363

California ISO - Supply, Today's Outlook

View real-time and historical data on generation resources, including renewables, currently on the system.

www.caiso.com

I'm very pro nuclear. This renewables stuff is nice and all but wow it sure makes running the AC in the summer hit the wallet really hard.

I've read that the cost increases in CA have to do with costs due to wildfires. Wind and Solar are generally cheaper than other power sources to setup and run. Nuclear, while it has benefits, is usually the most expensive.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I've read that the cost increases in CA have to do with costs due to wildfires. Wind and Solar are generally cheaper than other power sources to setup and run. Nuclear, while it has benefits, is usually the most expensive.

I've read the same. My current bill has a $4.34 wildfire charge on it. But I bet fire lawsuits are big reason for the overall cost increase -

Probably the distribution charge.

Anyway, I love watching CA ISO - that's a LOT of solar we're generating, often selling it to nearby states, then using it to power the 4,000 MW/hr batteries that can run for 3+ hours.

I could talk power all day lol.

Hope to get my own place with solar and charge my EV/powerwall batteries with it someday. (Won't be affording a house in CA in my lifetime tho).

 

[Flowstates]

I'm very pro nuclear. This renewables stuff is nice and all but wow it sure makes running the AC in the summer hit the wallet really hard.

I think that every environmentalist should at least entertain the idea of using the atom to power the renewable energy transition.

You guys in the US have it good. In the EU, considering the developments with our neighbors with the east. It would be strategically unwise to build more nuclear infrastructure in Hypersonic missile range lest we build a credible iron dome.

The only country with a clear roadmap regarding nuclear is France. Germany shutting their plant off on the permise of cheap russian gas is what is biting them in the butt rn (although it's impressive to see that their wind generation capability has tripled since the policy change).

What really has me pumped is the developpement of infrastructure like sand batteries considering the limited and increasingly litigious access to Lithium and rare earth metals.