The 'Automotive Environmental' Thread - Electric Cars/Fuel Quality/Alternative Fuel

Franco Cozzo · 13-04-2019, 01:48 PM

It seems we've got about 76 threads on the go at the moment where we're covering the environmental impacts of cars away from the initial topic intention.

There appears to be some sunshine, kittens, rainbows and unicorns environmental solution being thrown about by various people with vested interests in something to do with May 18th 2019

A particular group of people on the other side of the planet are talking of dates around circa 2030/2040 with a ban on ICE (internal combustion engine) car sales - I think they're in for a rude shock as I doubt battery technology/energy storage solutions have caught up to their expectations, 2030 is only 11 years away and at the rate electric cars have progressed, I don't think they're going to be ready as an ICE replacement prior to 2050, remember the electric car predates internal combustion engine cars.

To me, it seems like we're trying to run before we can even walk, if you wanted to improve the environment, the logical first step would be improving our woeful fuel quality in Australia:

Quote:

Australia has the worst petrol in the western world

UPDATED: Archaic government standards and lack of action around high sulphur-content fuel means you will have less choice on the showroom floor

https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news...-western-world

If the government starts dithering on something so basic to mandate better quality fuel and they refuse to do it before 2027, I don't see how they can put measures in place around electric cars by 2030.

Car manufacturers have had to detune their cars for decades here in Australia due to our crap fuel, Mazda in particular has given us half baked variants of their fancy Skyactiv engines because retards still insist on using 91, even our 98 sucks, 9 years ago when I started in the automotive industry we were having issues with new Honda Accord Euros having dramas with our 95 and 98 octane fuel with sub 50,000km on them.

To me, the logical next step for improving what comes out the exhaust pipe of cars is improving the quality of fuel you get at the pump, this one is low hanging fruit.

Then you can follow it up with a move towards phasing out regular unleaded for ethanol based fuels, such as E85 that Brazil has been using for a long time:

https://www.unitedpetroleum.com.au/fuel/e85/

Or even promoting LPG again as its a cleaner fuel than regular unleaded (Who remembers when we made cars which ran on straight LPG?

)

These two initial steps are a much more achievable and realistic approach achievable in the short term rather than trying to force everyone over to electric cars, which are having issues with battery technology, having to fight with one hand behind their back because of running into issues between weight and energy density of their power source.

Now don't get me wrong, electric motors make perfect sense for transport, 100% of its torque the moment it starts spinning, realistically electric cars are going to haul *** and they're an efficient way of moving things about, the problem for personal transportation is the energy density vs weight of storage is a serious problem.

Hyundai has released their own electric car - the Iconiq:

https://www.caradvice.com.au/706588/...eview-ev-phev/

The issue here is it only has a 230km range, its not a huge deal, I do a 140km daily commute to and from Melbourne as I live in Boganistan on its regional outskirts, I could make a car with a 230km range work.

My question is about its charging options, the article mentions a 100KW DC fast charger being able to charge it from flat to 80% in 23 minutes, alright cool but I don't think I could have that at home, 100KW at 240V is 416 amps so thats off the cards for a home charger.

The home fast charger will charge it up in around 4 hours, I assume thats going to require three phase power - we don't have three phase power at home, is it even available in a 30 year old residential estate like mine?

What infrastructure changes are required on an estate level to deal with everyone requiring 3 phase power for their fast chargers, or would it even cope with everyone just using the normal power outlets? It struggles now when it rains, or when its hot, or when everyone uses their reverse cycle systems for cooling or heating at the same time.

Given the estimated take up of electric vehicles in 2030, this would require power infrastructure investments on a national level.

I got the 10A 240V outlets everywhere, thats 12 hours charging time on the normal power outlets.

I get home at 6:30PM and I leave for work at 6:30AM, thats cutting it very fine on charging times - what about 5 years later when the battery bank is losing its capacity and nothing is working as efficiently?

Is there a standard for fast charging systems for electric cars? Will the Tesla fast charging system work with Hyundai Iconiq? Think of this like the standard for fuel filling points on cars, an unleaded pump is a specific size, a diesel pump is a specific size, its a universal standard across all car manufacturers so you can fill it with fuel, does this standard exist for the charging points on electric cars? Do they all have to charge at X Voltage at Y amps? Does the connector have to have identical pin position and same connector as each other or is it all proprietary thats different for every manufacturer?

Now the other problem, its $60K, $60K buys you a much nicer regular car than a Hyundai Iconiq.

We've had electric motors powering transportation for over 100 years - trams and trains but trams have the benefit of that pantograph on the top of it following around the power grid up top, trains have a few big diesel engines which just charge battery banks/electric motors.

I'd say a smaller scale variant of this is a good step towards a full electric vehicle, petrol engine rather than diesel, which just charges the battery bank to keep the electric motors powered - exactly the Holden Volt:

https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-rev...g-term-2-12819

https://www.drive.com.au/used-car-re...0161011-grzna0

The problem was this is probably a little ahead of its time and it was a sales flop, it was $60K (what was an SS Commodore worth at the time, 2014)

$60K bought you a Holden Volt back in 2014 that no one bought, $60K buys you a Hyundai Iconiq that no one will buy.

The biggest stumbling block for electric cars is energy density of their storage systems, the next for us in Australia is power infrastructure.

Unless you want to have electric cars with pantograph setups on them and we can follow Melbourne's trams around everywhere

Whats your opinions?

Sprintey · 13-04-2019, 03:15 PM

Very good and thoughtful post Franco, you have outlined the main real world challenges this 'top down, policy driven' approach is going to face.

I'd say in the meantime, this is where Toyota and its hybrid approach is looking really smart - proven older battery tech not using the new rare earth metals, and real world benefits including pretty impressive fuel economy - without being diesel.

I'd add if Australia really wants fuel sovereignty and still be able to transport things vast distances, what about rigging diesels to run on our massive reserves of CNG. CNG is different to LPG too.

I've got an idea as to why these goals are being set but it will take some time to distill into a decent post.

+1 for the words 'pantograph' and 'Boganistan' haha

Franco Cozzo · 13-04-2019, 03:37 PM

An easier way to deal with electric car charging issues would be incentives for servos to have electric vehicle charging stations, from a power infrastructure perspective I'd say a servo would have the required power infrastructure to deal with the heavy power demands given they've got a heap of electric pumps pulling fuel from a large tank - at a guess that would be very intensive from a power supply perspective.

If you had an electric car with the range of circa 500-800km that the servo could charge within 30 minutes you could just sit around for half an hour then leave, a servo with a hand car wash crew and cafe so there's something going on in that half an hour

Sprintey · 13-04-2019, 03:44 PM

OK, getting back to
a) headlong rush to EV and autonomous by Car execs, with scant regard to profitability
b)govt regulation going increasingly hard against ICE - for example is Macron's diesel tax/diesel prohibitions attempted in France that sparked the Yellow Vest protests. This was about a 20% increase in price, and the banning of diesels in urban town and city areas. A bit of a shock for everyday people.

Maybe the govcos can see something we cannot see: a real 'peak oil' of sorts. Let me explain.

For some time there's been a few economic bloggers posting about EROEI - energy returned on energy invested. Basically, there's still large oil reserves worldwide, but it's taking more and more effort to distill a good product out of it. Initial EROEI in the new Texas fields was about 100, Saudi might have been similar, now it's just south of 10 to 1. Below 5, and complex industrial society starts to get... less complex.

So if you are govco and can see this coming, maybe legislate in a new form of transportation and hopefully no one will notice.

Exhibit 1: the French diesel tax/ban. Blogger SRSRocco points out the relationship between heavy fuel oil (think: ships) and diesel. He notes that the production of heavy fuel oil has been lessening, and some of the raw product diverted to making diesel. The lessening production of heavy fuel oil is argued to portend a peak in diesel production, then spreading to petrol - from heavier carbon fuels to lighter ones.

https://srsroccoreport.com/has-peak-...snt-look-good/

Exhibit 2: Gail Tverberg argues that this transition away to electric is not really gonna happen. She makes a good point that increasing energy use generally means a happier nation, and provides examples of the political/warfare strife when 'energy use per capita' falls more than about 20%. De-industrialisation in Western nations has seen this occur, and depletion of fields in oil exporting countries has done similar. The results are political strife or worse, and I'd never viewed recent happenings such as Yellow Vests, Brexit, Venezuela's chaos, or Yemen through this prism.

She notes that much of this has been masked, and says "The timing of when fossil fuels will leave us seems to depend on when central banks lose their ability to stimulate the economy through lower interest rates." This follows on from the idea that QE -> high commodities prices ->profitability for oil exploration. If QE stops, oil price falls, explorers stop as it's not profitable -> no oil for you!

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/04/0...-fossil-fuels/

Exhibit 3: To counter Tverberg, here's Tony Seba's view that it is inevitable that renewables will overtake fossil fuels, that autonomous driving and BEVs will destroy both the oil industry and the car industry, and that technological society will be better than ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0

So summing up, companies like Tesla might be our last chance to continue to have the world of choice-of-transport, high technology in the face of reserves of fossil fuels that are harder to find and make into an easily usable product.

My own take is that planning for local generation of fuels that can run in current technology (say E85 with a chip) is probably a pretty smart idea going forward. Or solar/battery/electric car at home. I do wonder if the wonderful complexity of things you can buy from all over the world, travel you can do, etc, will ever be as good as today.

jpd80 · 13-04-2019, 03:33 PM

Franco, Hybrid vehicles are exempt for the proposed 2030 ban, the people pushing
that agenda are not qualifying the ban on pure ICE vehicles because they want the
sensational headline of change.

In reality, I bet that tech in 11 years time is such that hybrids will be an integral part
of most vehicles in Europe and by extension, most of the vehicles on sale in Australia.

Ford s already doing some interesting work with the Transit "electric vehicle" with the
1.0 EB Range extender ICE - I bet that is the next step along for PHEV and the last step
before dedicated BEVs. Those living around the edge of Australia will probably have no
choice but to electrify while people in the bush will just continue with ICEs.

hayseed · 13-04-2019, 03:33 PM

Good synopsis Franco..
I'm with Sprintey. Hybrids will outnumber Full EV's for many years to Come in My Opinion..

hayseed · 13-04-2019, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Is there a standard for fast charging systems for electric cars?

NFI.
However the NRMA have just installed a Charge point in the Carpark Of My Local Council chambers.

Sprintey · 13-04-2019, 05:12 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fische...ropsch_process

You're welcome, Gippsland, Hunter Valley and Bowen Basin. Probably make the AGW priests' heads explode, but it's there if you need it.

mcflux · 14-04-2019, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sprintey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fische...ropsch_process

You're welcome, Gippsland, Hunter Valley and Bowen Basin. Probably make the AGW priests' heads explode, but it's there if you need it.

Morwell (Gippsland) had one of these 50yrs ago before the Bass Strait industry took off. The Lurgi plant shut down once the cheaper offshore production took off.

The old plant site (which has gone thru several reboots over the decades) can be seen on StreetView on Tramway Rd, Morwell.

Sprintey · 14-04-2019, 08:43 PM

I guess a modern plant would have some improvements on one built 50 years ago. That's great to know they did it before.

hayseed · 13-04-2019, 05:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hayseed

NFI.
However the NRMA have just installed a Charge point in the Carpark Of My Local Council chambers.

According to the FAQ's there's 2 types of Plugs in general use..& at the Moment charging your car is Free.....

https://www.mynrma.com.au/community/...arging-network

kmav23 · 14-04-2019, 12:16 PM

Norway new cars sales fully electric vehicle (58%) and overall plug-in vehicle (69%). They are looking to ban all ICE cars by 2025.

California fifth largest economy in the world has EVs everywhere with more then 10% of new cars EVS.

People have owned EVS like Tesla s for over 8 years and have no issues with charging.

The grid in both countries are handling it fine, off peak tariffs and storage batteries will smooth out the demand on the grid.

Electricity is available everywhere and is dirt cheap compared to installing and running petrol stations.

You can install chargers in shopping malls, work, residential buildings and sidewalks.

Electrical power is everywhere.

People drive from California to New York, Melbourne to Gold coast regularly in a Tesla.

Franco Cozzo · 14-04-2019, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmav23

Norway new cars sales fully electric vehicle (58%) and overall plug-in vehicle (69%). They are looking to ban all ICE cars by 2025.

California fifth largest economy in the world has EVs everywhere with more then 10% of new cars EVS.

People have owned EVS like Tesla s for over 8 years and have no issues with charging.

The grid in both countries are handling it fine, off peak tariffs and storage batteries will smooth out the demand on the grid.

Electricity is available everywhere and is dirt cheap compared to installing and running petrol stations.

You can install chargers in shopping malls, work, residential buildings and sidewalks.

Electrical power is everywhere.

People drive from California to New York, Melbourne to Gold coast regularly in a Tesla.

Yeah except every time it lightly rains out here in the Macedon Ranges we lose power to our estate, or when everyone turns on their A/C on hot days, or when its cold and everyone uses their A/C on heating function - hamster on the wheel out here is part of the CFMMEU and goes on strike when the going gets tough

This aint California or the USA mate this is Australia with third world power infrastructure owned by foreign companies who don't maintain anything.

Like when the power lines fell off the pole a decade ago and started a bushfire that killed circa 170 people.

Imagine Adelaide with electric cars - they can't even keep the power on with 1.3M people

Brazen · 14-04-2019, 01:41 PM

Australia really has the opposite problem, where too much money is invested in infrastructure.

The private companies can charge a rate of return on any anything spent on infrastructure they that own. So if they spend $100 on wires, they can recoup $105 as an example.

It means there is a huge incentive to constantly invest and spend heavily, its where the term ‘gold plated instrastructure’ comes from and is used to describe the Australian electricity grid.

Of course these things may not prevent a storm bringing down an interconnector or power line but the actual infrastructure itself is pretty robust and advanced.

jmack · 14-04-2019, 02:38 PM

Now he has popped on this thread .should start a thread on vibrators then he will pipe in and say how elon has made a bigger and better one and all men will be obsolete by 2020

Franco Cozzo · 14-04-2019, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jmack

Now he has popped on this thread .should start a thread on vibrators then he will pipe in and say how elon has made a bigger and better one and all men will be obsolete by 2020

Lesbians buy Jeeps because Hummers are the only dildos they like

kmav23 · 14-04-2019, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Yeah except every time it lightly rains out here in the Macedon Ranges we lose power to our estate, or when everyone turns on their A/C on hot days, or when its cold and everyone uses their A/C on heating function - hamster on the wheel out here is part of the CFMMEU and goes on strike when the going gets tough

This aint California or the USA mate this is Australia with third world power infrastructure owned by foreign companies who don't maintain anything.

Like when the power lines fell off the pole a decade ago and started a bushfire that killed circa 170 people.

Imagine Adelaide with electric cars - they can't even keep the power on with 1.3M people

The transition is not happening in one year or 5 years. Norway is most aggressive at 2025, I think most over countries will be okay for 2030. This will be a ban on new cars, so if you really need you can buy a used one and last another 5 years.

10 years is a very long time, this is enough time to get the infrastructure ready, technology will also advance.

Franco Cozzo · 14-04-2019, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmav23

The transition is not happening in one year or 5 years. Norway is most aggressive at 2025, I think most over countries will be okay for 2030. This will be a ban on new cars, so if you really need you can buy a used one and last another 5 years.

10 years is a very long time, this is enough time to get the infrastructure ready, technology will also advance.

10 years is nothing in a political context,

Afghanistan War is still going and thats been on for 18 years now, NBN was announced in 2007 and its still not finished and that was 12 years ago.

If the Government can't get fast internet to some of the population within 10 years they've got no hope of overhauling power infrastructure.

I'm not sure what Australia you live in bro but its different from my Australia thats for sure.

Sprintey · 14-04-2019, 06:23 PM

The inner big cities vs the regions, different worlds in so many ways.

ozrunner · 14-04-2019, 07:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmav23

Norway new cars sales fully electric vehicle (58%) and overall plug-in vehicle (69%). They are looking to ban all ICE cars by 2025...…..

Why not tell the whole Norway story which was done by our local paper on Firday 12/4 and I'll help you out with a brief resume' of some facts you haven't mentioned in your crusade. Mods, I tried to find this for link purposes to no avail so story was compiled by Jack Houghton presumably of The West Australian.

It arose because of dumbarse Shortens plan to have 50% of new cars brought being EV etc etc.

The story heading is :The E-car capital that LOST $500m

"Norway has been heralded by Labor and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk as the Utopian example of successful electric vehicle policy but new modelling shows the country is losing $500m dollars a year subsidising the market........

The tiny country supplements its green initiatives in part through CO2 and road taxes on fuel which have pushed petrol prices to an eye watering $3 dollars a litre, among the highest in the world". ......Other costs to taxpayers came from increasing taxation on combustion engine vehicles....

It also points out that tolls were initiated but a ban on vehicle access to the Oslo CBD caused a backdown when protests resulted.

"Mr Musk and the Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek have pointed to Norway as a case study for Australia's transport future but both failed to mention the significant economic caveats required for the transition".

I can just imagine what taxes etc Shorten and Co would come up with to cover his "pink batts" policy.

Sprintey · 14-04-2019, 07:53 PM

ozrunner this is the great risk - that the central planners, by picking favourites, bankrupt the auto industry and penalise the rest of society.

kmav23 · 14-04-2019, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sprintey

ozrunner this is the great risk - that the central planners, by picking favourites, bankrupt the auto industry and penalise the rest of society.

All the big car makers Germany, china, America and Korea all have been given some type grant, bailout, loan subsidy and even tariffs on imports by their own government.

Sprintey · 15-04-2019, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmav23

All the big car makers Germany, china, America and Korea all have been given some type grant, bailout, loan subsidy and even tariffs on imports by their own government.

Aware of this and completely agree. It's a fascinating case study that Australia, the one nation to do the free trade thing and lower all support/protection to very little/nil, ends up being the only G20 country without a car industry. All others protect in various forms.

The transition to electric forced by legislation is more of a 'stick' than the 'carrot' of subsidies that have existed to this point. The 'stick' will get pushback like we see in France. The subsidies have worked, slowly just as subsidies in various forms keep all the big national auto producers going. Joe Public like me will be a convert too: hey, I can power a car at 1/3 of the cost! Hey, with solar and batteries, it will eventually be free of fuel cost! That realisation will grow.

The risk in bankrupting from the forced legislation is if the boards of automakers have misjudged in reaction to the policy, and pour enormous capital into products that won't be profitable or sell in any volume. Combined with the notion that autonomous vehicles reducing the size of the vehicle fleet by 75%, personal ownership of cars drastically reducing - the manufacturers may wish to reduce their footprint if they wish to stay in business (happening).

Maybe govcos see the need to change as being more severe than the public do, and maybe the reason is this domino-like depletion of each type of hydrocarbon fuel rather than what makes the news headlines?

Vesper Martini · 15-04-2019, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmav23

Norway new cars sales fully electric vehicle (58%) and overall plug-in vehicle (69%). They are looking to ban all ICE cars by 2025.

Enough of Norway - Literally the other side of the planet to Australia in so many ways

snap0964 · 15-04-2019, 11:56 AM

Plus they're 24 times smaller in size than Australia, and five times less population as well, and the majority of their energy is from hydro - our Snowy Hydro 2 is not comparable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozrunner

I can just imagine what taxes etc Shorten and Co would come up with to cover his "pink batts" policy.

Kevin Rudd come up with the NBN on the back of an envelope.

simon varley · 14-04-2019, 06:27 PM

when we have government changes every three of four years - why does anyone think a 10 year plan is ever going to happen? the current opposition will rip it up and start again when they are elected, and then that opposition will do the same when why get into power. Those that aren't bought and paid for by the cola industry are owned by other industries that have a vested interest in the status quo.

don't get me wrong here - I'm massively in favor of electrification of the transport fleet, especially for inner cities, but the truth is that yet again Australia will be 20 years at least behind he rest of the world in this.

rdmr · 15-04-2019, 09:40 AM

An interesting article on Battery swapping for BEVs via Wired. Potentially overcomes the problems of home charging, fast charging and infrastructure upgrading.

CHINESE CARMAKER NIO, the world’s newest electric vehicle unicorn, has a big idea: battery swapping. In theory, the process is quicker and more convenient than a fast charge. A driver rolls into a battery swap station, and a robot replaces the drained battery with a fully charged spare. But even though NIO’s battery swapping stations are already deployed in major cities across China, retail investors don't seem to be taking NIO’s swap network seriously.

Perhaps that’s because Chinese electric vehicle hype has often outpaced performance (See: CODA, BYD, and Faraday Future.) Or perhaps it's the shadow of an earlier battery-swap unicorn, Better Place—arguably the most spectacular EV flameout in history. There’s also the fact that NIO is billed as a challenger to Tesla—a claim that strains credulity. Elon Musk continues to crush automakers like BMW and Audi in the EV market. So, it’s no great surprise that investors are skeptical. When NIO set a target price for its IPO between $6.25 and $8.25 last month, it barely scraped the floor, debuting at $6.26.

Still, NIO's battery swapping business may be worth far more than Wall Street realizes.

There’s a lot to like about battery swapping. For one, it reverses the standard time tradeoff between EVs and gasoline-powered vehicles. Many EV owners plug-in overnight and charge for hours. In general, fast chargers are now able to charge a battery to 80 percent in a little under half an hour. But in that time, some battery swap stations could charge dozens of cars to 100 percent. In 2013, Tesla swapped out two EV batteries in the time it took to fill an Audi's tank with gas. Today, a company called BattSwap says it can change out a battery in less than a minute. “It requires no user interaction," says Bert Robbens, BattSwap's Chief Technical Officer. "You can do the swap from within your vehicle.” And swapping a 500-mile EV battery won’t necessarily take longer than one with a 100-mile range.

But ever since the downfall of Better Place in 2012, battery swapping has been widely regarded as a technological dead end. Nonetheless, a number of innovative companies, including Tesla, are still quietly developing battery swap ecosystems. That’s because as EV ranges get longer and batteries get bigger, fast-charge technology is fighting physics. Each of Tesla’s newest Super Chargers provides up to 135 Kilowatts of power—twenty-seven thousand times more than an ordinary iPhone charger. (Some EV companies are already testing “ultra-fast” chargers that will provide up to 350 Kilowatts.) These power levels are so high that powerful cooling systems are required to keep vehicles from overheating. Tesla has even experimented with liquid-cooled cables. That’s because systems aren’t 100 percent efficient and the remaining percentage points of lost energy are converted into heat. For a 95 percent efficient 135 kilowatt system, that energy loss is like having half a dozen industrial-grade heat guns on full blast.

Pulling that amount of power from the electrical grid is also a major headache for local utilities. Distribution lines and transformers need to handle enormous spikes of electrical demand when cars plug in; many systems will have to be replaced or upgraded. The user pays for these upgrades in the form of “demand charges,” based on their peak consumption of electricity. Demand charges can make or break a business—significant spikes in demand can mean fees that are higher than the cost of electricity provided.

Battery swapping flips this liability on its head. Empty batteries that are swapped out can be charged when electricity is cheap or demand is low. Whoever owns those batteries can then sell that electricity to motorists at a premium, or even sell it back into the grid when prices are high and supplies are tight. This arbitrage is particularly important in a world of renewable energy. When the sun shines bright or the wind blows hard, renewable energy sources may produce more electricity than the grid needs; at other times renewables may not produce enough. Banks of batteries waiting to be swapped can soak up extra energy and sell it at a profit, thus balancing supply and demand.

If utilization is high enough to defray capital costs, battery swapping is a compelling economic proposition. And it can also benefit consumers. EV batteries lose range over the years. But with a swap system, users pay for electricity and batteries as they are used. That could mean lower upfront vehicle costs and increased driving range, as batteries improve.

Time, technological advances, and deliberate planning have neutralized many of the problems that plagued Better Place. NIO’s doomed predecessor struggled with slow market growth, lackluster cars, high capital costs, expensive batteries, and extravagant capital outlays. NIO is manufacturing its own electric vehicles, so it’s not dependent on automakers to produce sexy cars or agree to its technical standards. And because battery costs have plummeted, so have costs for battery swapping.

China’s booming market, which accounts for more than half of global electric vehicle sales, gives NIO the potential to scale much faster than Better Place ever could. And as China moves toward 35% renewable energy by 2030, NIO is poised to play a significant and profitable role balancing the supply and demand for China’s renewables-rich grid.

NIO’s battery swapping could serve as the cornerstone of a powerful ecosystem that integrates electric vehicles, mobility, renewable energy, and storage. Properly executed, NIO could indeed compete with Tesla, and at a massive scale.

Those who have accepted the demise of battery swapping may be in for a shock. The technology will likely be a critical enabler for electrification, not just in cars, but planes, drones, rideshare fleets, and autonomous vehicles. It may also be one of the most economical ways to build out the large battery banks necessary to support the world’s growing supplies of renewable energy.

It shouldn’t surprise us that technologies left for dead sometimes come back to change the world. After all, it wasn’t that long ago we were asking, “Who killed the electric car?”

au2000 · 15-04-2019, 05:55 PM

A second article of interest was Labours plans to introduce another new car tax of between $1500 and $5000 per new car sold stating that this tax is cost effective due to the petrol savings over 10 years which should equate to approx $8,500 that hybrids etc will save in fuel, so correct me if I'm wrong but labours plans are to make you pay extra tax for buying a fuel efficient vehicle,

ozrunner · 15-04-2019, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au2000

A second article of interest was Labours plans to introduce another new car tax of between $1500 and $5000 per new car sold stating that this tax is cost effective due to the petrol savings over 10 years which should equate to approx $8,500 that hybrids etc will save in fuel, so correct me if I'm wrong but labours plans are to make you pay extra tax for buying a fuel efficient vehicle,

Yep that's what Shortens genius plan will entail.

Another article in todays West with the headline " Tradies to Get Nasty Electric Shock"

Basically outlines Shortens plan will mean Tradies updating to a new Hilux etc in the future means it will cost them an additonal $5k in tax.

All this due to climate change launacy when nothing Australia can do will make any meaningful contribution yet many seem to be prepared to accept this dumbarse policy and pay threw the nose for zero results. Countries would be laughing at our stupidity.

au2000 · 15-04-2019, 06:00 PM

Kmav23, and this is not a personal dig but a real question of interest as ur the biggest supporter of all electric,
1 what part of Australia do you live in
2 is your home totally self sufficient ie off the grid or do you use mainstream power also
3 given that wind turbines and solar power alone cannot power everyone's home how do you suggest we get our power

Disclaimer, when I looked at going solar a number of reps clearly told me this was not a option for my home as my only north facing roof was too small to make any panels viable and that I'd be better off on the grid, so yes, I'm a grid whore and will be for life