Electric cars are already causing some grid failures in Australia

EV ownership in Australia is only 1 car in 4,000 of all our cars on the road. Yet already they are causing streets to go black, and possibly blowing transformers which need replacing “more often”:

Electric cars are already causing some grid failures

Robert Gottliebsen, The Australian

It’s a crisis that has been concealed from the vast majority of the population … The danger really came home to me when I met up with an affluent, long-time Melbourne acquaintance who lives in a street where there are six Tesla cars.  When they all try to charge their batteries at the same time, the power goes out in the street because the grid fails. Sometimes it fails when only three or four of them try to charge at the same time.

Australians only own 5,000 EV’s at present. Imagine the fun when 500,000 new EV’s hit the streets in 2030, and again in 2031, 2032,….

He talks about intermittent power causing “choppy” electron flows which make transformers hotter:

 To my horror I discovered that cities like Melbourne and Sydney are in danger of either experiencing explosions or even a complete collapse of the system.

Gottliebsen went on to find a solution (apart from the obvious one of “not rushing into EVs”). He found something called the Faraday Grid, developed in Australia, but ignored, so now based in Scotland and used by London and Tokyo.

But give me one reason not to just use cheap clean brown coal for the next 300 years, leave the grid as is, and use all the spare money for medical research and holidays in the Bahamas.

Apparently we are replacing transformers more often than we used to. Another hidden cost of renewables?

Suddenly the grid, instead of simply being a one-way traffic system, can handle different power sources coming from different directions. The Faraday installations replace the current transformers which, as it turns out, are now being replaced more frequently because they were never designed for the power pattern that is currently running through them.

This is dropped in as an aside, but where is the university study of transformer attrition and costs in Australia?

Engineering types may want to find out more about the Faraday Grid or at PowerEngineeringInt.

The Faraday Grid is an autonomous, self-balancing network installed within an existing electricity grid. It comprises a network of independent autonomous hardware devices called Faraday Exchangers which operate in isolation and are independent of any central network management. As such, the exchanger is designed to replace the function of existing electricity network infrastructure such as transformers, converters, inverters and rectifiers.

I can’t get excited. But maybe it’s good for some other reason.

9.4 out of 10 based on 103 ratings

249 comments to Electric cars are already causing some grid failures in Australia

  • #
    James Poulos

    Wind turbines, solar panels, inverters, interconnectors, Tesla batteries, Faraday Grids…

    Once upon a time it was just coal fired power stations and poles and wires.

    And it all worked efficiently and economically.

    In the 60’s the Americans spent millions of dollars developing a pen that could write in outer space.

    The Russians used a pencil.

    531

    • #
      Another Ian

      That pen was a godsend to cross word puzzle people.

      It means you can do a crossword lying in bed with the paper on your upraised legs, which requires the ability to write uphill.

      142

    • #
      RicDre

      “The Russians used a pencil.”

      As I recall, the Russians also had problems with loose graphite floating around in the capsules which was created by using pencils in space.

      80

      • #
        yarpos

        Always wondered about the videos of them playing with water globules in zero gravity. I would so not do that inside a space chock full of technology my life depended on. I guess its all protected.

        40

      • #
        ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

        As it turns out all that was needed was an ordinary ballpoint pen. Pressurisation in the pen is only necessary when writing upside-down in gravity. Loose graphite floating around can get into the electronics causing short circuits and that’s very bad in orbit, but I’d like to see what it might do to a Tesla.. 🙂

        30

    • #
      MudCrab

      The Russians used a pencil.

      Urban myth constantly refuelled because it makes a good punch line.

      30

    • #
      Geoff

      So we make something that is cheap and easy to run, with known opex, capex and operating life, into a complex mess with crucial inputs from politicians and environmental activists who think we can control the climate by “dog whistling” and paying people to “look into it” forever.

      When can we expect Russian collusion? Surely the Chinese are involved? We could not have possibly done this ourselves?

      Stupidity and greed will destroy Australia long before the 12 year CO2 deadline. We will simply run out of despatchable electricity by turning off the grids main generators. No heartbeat, no grid.

      50

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Just needs more money thrown at it putting more charging stations in , that should fix it .
    A few billion here a few 50 billion there meh .

    100

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      More money?

      But our one time Prime Minister Julia Gillard assured us that our “poles and wires” are already gold plated!

      41

    • #
      yarpos

      If you put in more charging stations that will fix BS Bill’s charging time issue. Its the same as how nine pregnant women can produce a baby in one month. I learnt that at project management school.

      60

  • #
    Graeme#4

    Invoking the name of a prestigious scientist such as Faraday to market “smart” transformers must make the poor gent turn in his grave. The only tenuous link between a transformer and Faraday that I can think of is the Faraday shield.

    151

    • #

      Faraday, eh. I wonder what this bunch were called before their last bankruptcy. Menlo Park Energy? Edison Power Systems? Maybe they’re not even a rebirth…”Design by Rationalised Constraint (DbRC)” certainly sounds new. Anyway, it’s Faraday to save Tesla!

      Gottliebsen does his good little shill thing and uses another green disaster as a boost for a new green boondoggle. Will advertising never stop?

      Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Murdoch.

      80

  • #

    At a charge rate at home of 64KWH for one of the smaller ones, it’s the equivalent of adding three extra homes to the grid in that area, and mind you, that’s just for one car.

    The grid is worked out area by area, so if a suburb already has homes in every street, then the power for that area is worked out to be X, and all the infrastructure is designed for that.

    Add those EV’s now, and that’s three extra homes per one EV and you can see how much strain that now puts on that area within the suburb, and as a whole for the whole suburb.

    There WILL be expensive brown odours, and that’s a technical term we electricians used in the RAAF as electrical equipment burned out, and if you’ve ever smelled a burnt out transformer, you know exactly what I mean.

    I can see Sub Stations going phhht! and it won’t be a matter of resetting the ‘breaker’, as a transformer burn out at a sub station is an expensive and time consuming task to replace, just on the off chance one is even handy.

    This is ill thought out rhetoric that thankfully will not get off the ground when the truth comes out. There will be embarrassment enough to cover everybody with the stench.

    Of course, that’s provided the home owner can afford a home charger, and the rewiring cost for the home in the first place.

    Tony.

    592

    • #
      Graeme#4

      When somebody lets the smoke out? You never do this in electronics, as it’s darn hard to put the smoke back in.

      200

      • #
        Bobl

        Electrical stuff works on magic smoke, let the magic smoke out and it doesn’t work anymore.

        100

      • #
        JoKaH

        Electrical Theory- A Treatise on the Importance of Smoke
        by Joseph Lucas (Prince of darkness)

        All electrical components and wiring harnesses depend on proper circuit functioning, which is the transmission of charged ions by retention of the visible spectral manifestation known as “smoke”. Smoke is the thing that makes electrical circuits work. Don’t be fooled by scientists and engineers talking about excited electrons and the like. Smoke is the key to all things electrical We know this to be true because every time one lets the smoke out of an electrical circuit, it stops working. This can be verified repeatedly through empirical testing. For example, if one places a large copper bar across the terminals of a battery, prodigious quantities of smoke are liberated and the battery shortly ceases to function. In addition, if one observes smoke escaping from an electrical component such as a Lucas voltage regulator, it will also be observed that the component no longer functions.

        The logic is elementary and inescapable! The function of the wiring harness is to conduct the smoke from one device to another. When the wiring harness springs a leak and lets all the smoke out of the system, nothing works right afterward. Starter motors were considered unsuitable for British motorcycles for some time largely because they regularly released large quantities of smoke from the electrical system.

        It has been reported that Lucas electrical components are possibly more prone to electrical leakage than their Bosch, Japanese or American counterparts. Experts point out that this is because Lucas is British, and all things British leak. British engines leak oil, British shock absorbers, hydraulic forks, and disk brake systems leak fluid, British tires leak air and British Intelligence leaks national defence secrets. Therefore, it follows that British electrical systems must leak smoke. Once again, the logic is clear and inescapable. Sometimes you may miss the component releasing the smoke that makes your electrical system function correctly, but if you sniff around you can often find the faulty component by the undeniable and telltale smoke smell. Sometimes this is a better indicator than standard electrical tests performed with a volt-ohm meter.

        In conclusion, the basic concept of transmission of electrical energy in the form of smoke provides a clear and logical explanation of the mysteries of electrical components and why they fail.

        “A gentleman does not motor about after dark.” – Joseph Lucas, 1842-1903

        220

        • #
          Ian Hill

          “A gentleman does not motor about after dark.” – Joseph Lucas, 1842-1903

          I watched a movie once where someone said “a gentleman always puts his socks on before his trousers”. I was never able to work that one out. I can’t quite remember which movie – it may have been “Witness for the Prosecution”. It definitely wasn’t a James Bond movie, and Bond had to put his trousers on lots of times!

          40

          • #
            A gentleman (not really)

            I can answer this one.

            If you’re wearing trousers when you bend over to put on your socks, you put additional and unnecessary strain on the fabric covering your knees. Sadly, this is generally too difficult to avoid when you put on your shoes, which is why all trousers eventually fail at the knees.

            50

        • #
          John F. Hultquist

          “em> if one places a large copper bar across the terminals of a battery ”

          Don’t try this under the hood of your own auto.
          Use your neighbor’s. {joke, smile}

          50

          • #
            RicDre

            “…if one places a large copper bar across the terminals of a battery…”

            Many years ago, my brother used to work on Uninterruptible Power Supplies for Telephone exchanges which consisted of racks of Lead-Acid batteries backed up by a diesel generator. They had to work on them while they were in operation because nothing was allowed to take the Telephone exchange out of service. He use tell the story of one poor technician who, while working on the UPS, accidentally got an end-wrench across the positive and negative terminals of the UPS battery rack. It melted the end-wrench into two pieces. This was undoubtedly accompanied by a good deal of smoke.

            40

            • #
              Greg Cavanagh

              I did the same thing with the one battery on my car, accidently touched the other terminal while undoing the bolt. BANG! Took a chunk out of the spanner where it hit the terminal.

              I’ve also seen a movie somewhere along the tracks of the same thing in an old submarine running on electric to keep silent. Some poor guy had to hang on a gantry over the batteries and work on them live.

              10

            • #
              yarpos

              We found out that the exchange power supply was very interruptable one day.

              We had a very basic system, battery being charged by rectifiers and motor generator sets. BIG diesel generator backup. Total capacity 8000A at 48V.

              One of the lowly jobs for trainees was to measure and record the specific gravity of the starter batteries on the diesel generator. Somehow the culture developed that multiple people couldnt be bothered and entered fake numbers in the record (later in was revealed that most just got sick of holes in their clothes from micro splashes of acid).

              Sooo, one day we have a then rare power outage, battery voltage drops, go to start the diesel, CLICK! no BRRRRRMMMM. The panic was delicious 🙂 The Exchange boss had a big personality that was well on display that day.

              20

            • #

              I was working, some twenty-five years ago, as part of an M&E team supervising a really large construction project in London, which was being built on top of, as well as all around, a large rail passenger terminal station. A very small part of this project was the introduction of a ‘No-Break’ U.P.S. system which looked at the complete power supply system for all the signals over the entire area. The technician completed all the cabling, and asked if he could test it. This meant simulating a power breakdown, which would, in theory, bring the battery back-up supply on line with no effect on the signalling system. As the signals were the literal ‘heartbeat’ of the entire system, I approached the senior rail engineers, and asked for a scheduled test time. They came back after ten multi-function meetings, and gave me a date somewhere around six months away, and then that was only on a ‘possibility’ basis; as they were all literally sh*t scared of breaking the supply, even for a test of a minute. When I left the Project some time later, they still hadn’t agreed on a ‘Test’ basis.

              I hadn’t the heart to tell them that I had already tested the damn thing myself; proving that it worked perfectly, as the whole system didn’t even twitch!

              20

        • #
          David Wojick

          An electrician friend says that when they turn on the power in a new building for the first time it is called the “smoke test.” Sounds right.

          70

          • #
            RicDre

            “it is called the ‘smoke test.’

            When I was a teenager, I use to build Vacuum Tube based Stereo amplifiers. It was not uncommon for them to fail the ‘Smoke Test’ the first time power was applied to them.

            40

          • #
            Graeme#4

            I recall somebody wiring a firework across the low voltage tranny of a reconditioned very large power supply, while the rebuilder was at morning tea break. When he returned and switched on, he was mortified by the loud bang and smoke issuing forth.

            10

            • #
              yarpos

              I once thought it would be a good idea in a first year trainee lab class to look at the mains 240V waveform on a CRO (oscillioscope) Not inherently a bad idea but badly executed which resulted in a loud BLAT and a small cloud of smoke, under which I sat , trying to look innocent.

              30

        • #
          Ted O'Brien.

          No need for a large copper bar. When I hit the starter in the 24 volt truck with a crook terminal connection I didn’t see much smoke. Just a spray of molten lead that left the battery unserviceable.

          20

    • #
      Lionell Griffith

      Oh, the fix for that is easy. Require each owner of an electric vehicle to install a 60KW Diesel generator. Then charge his car using the output from his generator. When he is not using it, simply add the output from the generator to the network. It should all smooth out after the electric car owner pays for the generator, the fuel, the connection to the power network, the car, and the “carbon” taxes attributable to the fuel he burns generating the electricity.

      There is that little problem of practicality, context, reality, and only a government can pretend to afford such a fix, that is ignored. However, if government can ignore practicality, context, reality, and the cost of their pretend fixes, why can’t I? After all, my fix makes just as much sense as ANY of their pretend fixes.

      A simple back of an envelope calculation could have shown that their pretend fix would not work, for we the people, decades ago but wasn’t that the point of the enterprise? They had a functional technological civilization to destroy. Since what works depends upon one’s goal, the means delivered and will keep on delivering as long as we keep feeding them.

      270

      • #
        ColA

        Lionel,

        They would not have to buy a NEW generator if they had any brains, just buy the 60kW unit when they buy their back up unit for 50% ruinables!!

        30

        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          Just put the generator under the bonnet of the car, running on diesel. You could call it an engine if you wanted to.

          50

      • #
        yarpos

        That basically what South Australia ended up doing.

        20

      • #
        Analitik

        It reminds me of how Californians in rural areas are being subsidized to install diesel generators to act as grid “stabilizers” when the sun sets and the wind doesn’t blow.

        00

    • #
      rk

      Tony,
      You haven’t bothered to mention that it is even worse when power is mostly charged on only one phase

      61

      • #
        yarpos

        I think he tries to keep it relatively understandable for all. Phases tend to make eyes glaze over outside the world of electrcian/technician/engineer

        10

        • #

          When I try and explain this (umm) ‘simple’ vector diagram at this link to fellow electricians, I get half way through after around a quarter hour, and I see puzzled looks.

          If I tried to explain it to non electrically trained people, anyone, I absolutely ‘know’, hand on heart that I have completely lost them right after saying ….. “now, listen carefully”.

          That’s why I (hopefully) try to keep it all as simple as is feasibly possible.

          Tony.

          90

    • #
      John in Oz

      In the navy a common saying was to ‘tune for maximum smoke’.

      We also blew circuitry to protect the fuses.

      60

      • #
        Graeme#4

        Ah yes, back in the days when we would tune a Tx for a nice warm cherry glow on the graphite anodes of the PA valves.

        10

        • #

          Ah, yes, the good old Mullard valves. (a sample at this link)

          I went to a concert in the 70’s once, (umm, one of many) in a freezing cold Newcastle (NSW) Winter, and there were the roadies hiding behind the big Marshall and Fender Amps, hands out, warming themselves from the heat put out by these little beauties in the power amp side of the amplifier.

          Have a ‘cockroach’ burn out in the milliWatt range, and then wonder that some valves similar to this and larger could handle literally Hundreds of Watts, and just glow warmly, but man, the heat they put out.

          Tony.

          30

    • #
      Betapug

      I do not know the situation in Australia but availability of large power transformers has been a critical issue previously in the US with long lead times due to most of the manufacturing capacity having moved out of the country
      “In 2010, six power transformer manufacturing facilities existed in the United
      States, and together, they met approximately 15 percent of the Nation’s demand for power transformers.” https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/Large%20Power%20Transformer%20Study%20-%20June%202012_0.pdf

      30

      • #
        Philo

        Power station capacitors were big news in the US a few years ago. A small group of terrorists managed to knock out a power substation near Los Angeles by damaging some of the transformers with gunfire. They never were caught, as far as I know. Turns out it would take 6 months to build a single transformer in the US in only one plant that could do it. Sourcing critical infrastructure from over seas would be a last ditch effort, given all the ways to sabotage that process.

        50

        • #
          yarpos

          I am surprised that more of this doesnt happen, especially in the US where 50cals and similar are readily available. You could cause so much damage while standing off a kilometre or so.

          We had an mini episode in Melbourne where speed cameras on a freeway got shot out. The freeway lead to a shooting range abot 50kms out of town. Hmmmmmmmm.

          10

    • #
      jo blo

      I visualize tesla charging in terms of electric heaters, which typically draw 1500 watts (a lot, likely to damage an outlet).

      15 kwh = 10 of those heaters running CONTINUOUSLY for an hour (usually they cycle as their setting is reached).

      So charging a tesla @ 64kwh =~ 4.25 hours of 10 heaters running.

      Those batteries are cooled by the cars AC, to reduce risk of ‘letting the smoke out’. A tesla owner monitored the power used and compared it to running 2 refrigerators. This goes on even when the car is parked.

      50

    • #
      nc

      Tony you missed protection components that will alarm and or automatically switch out overloaded equipment before damage can result. Substation equipment failures result from faulty equipment or errors, not overloading.

      Having said that if monitoring equipment is working properly warmings should give the grid operator time to react.

      Having said that ageing equipment generally has less resiliency when operated to its design limits.

      20

    • #
      James

      Your post got me thinking about the number of suburban blocks that I see being divided, so an additional house can be put into what was once someone’s back yard. Has the grid been upgraded for this, or more likely the margin for peak loads is just getting reduced instead.

      30

    • #
      ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

      The grid is worked out area by area, so if a suburb already has homes in every street, then the power for that area is worked out to be X, and all the infrastructure is designed for that.

      I doubt they took CFL’s and LED’s into account, but even incandescent lights make up a tiny amount of power consumption in the average house, especially if electric hot water is used. Then there are all the 50-inch plasma TV’s and other home entertainment stuff that uses 120+ watts, including 1500+ watt electric heaters teenage girls use in their room if the house doesn’t have central heating blowing 200+ watts of air around and their habit of using 1900+ watt hair dryers for hours a day.

      10

  • #
    Graeme#4

    I criticised Robert G, some thought a bit harshly, for becoming involved in complex issues of grid management without even a basic understanding of the issues involved. However, I still believe that for all reporters, a bit of basic research would help them a lot. I still believe the good thing about the continued discussion in the MSM about EVs and grid issues is that the discussions must surely bring some of these issues to the notice of the general public.

    100

    • #

      I still believe the good thing about the continued discussion in the MSM about EVs and grid issues is that the discussions must surely bring some of these issues to the notice of the general public.

      Yeah! But not before the election if it embarrasses Bill.

      Tony.

      340

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        You mean Fast Charge Bill?

        Dont worry i will be telling as many people as possible…..

        111

      • #
        David Wojick

        Surely the grid engineers have done studies on the impossibility of serving a lot of EVs without extensive rebuilding of the grid. It should be relatively simple to work this out and the power companies do lots of computer simulations. Likewise, the government engineers overseeing the power companies must have done a bunch of modeling. If not in Oz then in the U.S. or UK or Gemany.

        Where are these studies?

        50

        • #
          Ted O'Brien.

          Surely yes. But it’s politicians, not engineers, that we are dealing with.

          50

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Repressed.
          Don’t ask.
          It may be the last thing you do in your professional capacity.

          11

        • #
          yarpos

          I used to work in a different field , IT. I could see somethings that were going to crash and burn and tried to do something about it (some technology and some to do with staff treatment). I found that this was ineffective and career limiting.

          Eventually I complied and did what I could to look after my own people. About the same time I trealised the job was destoring my marriage so I worked 9-5, complied and delegated. After that I was promoted rapidly. It seemed the less I did the more I got paid. So I totally understand the Engineers who have ceased beating their heads on the brick wall and just smoothly deploy the politicians stupid sh1t.

          50

      • #
        William

        Tony, you are dreaming. No matter what facts you raise or the logic of your arguments, the vast majority of commenters at the former Fairfax blog sites utterly refuse to accept that there are problems their AGW/MMCC models. Further they believe that EVs, wind and solar, backed up by Snowy 2 and Tesla batteries, are the beautiful, green future and that green electricity is a never ending supply of wonderfulness.

        They want all coal mining banned – thermal and coking – and refuse to believe that this will have any negative effect on the manufacturing of nearly all of the components of renewables.

        You really have to wonder what, if anything, goes through their minds!

        80

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Methinks Robert and his mate Alan have a lot of skin in this game. I think it was nearly two years ago that it appeared to me that they suddenly upped their positive comment on the global warming issue.

      I suspected then that the cause might have been that they had calculated the effect on their business if the Australian government made further cuts to the RET.

      As professional advisors they no doubt had given in all good faith investment advice that the RET as legislated by the Abbott government under the “protection” of Al Gore and Clive Palmer was a good investment. That legislation provided the “certainty” that political commentators talk about.

      Just like Warren Buffett they would know that the business here is subsidy collection, and would now realise that the global warming campaign is a sword dangling over their heads.

      Robert’s story today is on the ball. Our poles and wires are not gold plated at all.

      20

    • #
      MudCrab

      …for all reporters, a bit of basic research…

      HAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA!

      (pause for breath)

      HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

      You still believe The Media are here to help provide accurate information?

      Who linked to that interview with the ex-Guardian editor recently? They honestly believe it is their right and duty to control the discussion and fundamentally disagree with information being allowed to spread uncontrolled sideways. Information flow should come from the top down.

      Research? Why would they want to do that?

      60

      • #
        Power Grab

        Re: “You still believe The Media are here to help provide accurate information?”

        Heh!

        Very good question. More and more, I see that the PR for the media (that their job is to tell the truth…) is just as bogus as the PR for the medical establishment (that their job is to heal people…)

        What we need to do is pop their PR bubbles. All persons in the media should be considered to be simply frustrated fiction writers and would-be dictators. And all persons in the medical profession should be considered to be arrogant, know-it-all rent-seekers whose ultimate goal is to get everyone hooked on meds.

        Oops!

        Did I say that out loud?

        20

    • #
      Andrew McRae

      Gotta love the irony.

      Graeme#4, April 10, 2019 at 5:11 pm :

      The only tenuous link between a transformer and Faraday that I can think of is the Faraday shield.

      The link between Faraday and transformers is that Faraday invented them.
      https://www.rigb.org/our-history/iconic-objects/iconic-objects-list/faraday-ring

      Graeme#4, April 10, 2019 at 5:17 pm:

      a bit of basic research would help them a lot.

      Like 30 seconds of searching the web for Faraday?

      00

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    If every house has an EV, you double the domestic electrical load on the grid.

    This is not rocket science, but clearly as its basic maths, the politicians get an ‘ F’ as they are mostly humanitarians, not scientists or maths people….

    170

    • #
      Dave Ward

      If every house has an EV, you double the domestic electrical load on the grid

      Then ban the installation of “Fast” chargers (typically 7-9kW), and limit homeowners to using a normal domestic socket. This generally means about 3kW max, which should be be low enough not to cause major problems. Naturally that won’t go down too well with Tesla owners…

      161

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        “…..Naturally that won’t go down too well with Tesla owners…”

        I suspect a lot of tesla owners are wealthy virtue-signallers…..I suspect they have the cash to have 3 phase already connected and wont notice if the street goes dark….

        121

    • #
      James

      Then sub divide off the back yard and build another home and add another electric car. Then we can see how well the grid works.

      100

    • #
      AndyG55

      Let’s not forget, Many families have 2 or more cars. !

      Mum wants hers ready for tomorrow’s badminton practice.

      Dad wants his ready for heading off to do some fishing.

      Son needs his to go surfing with his mates

      Daughter needs hers to go shopping with friends.

      Have fun charging all those !!

      141

      • #
        yarpos

        We have 5 cars and two people. I have enough trouble making sure the trickle chargers are working.

        30

  • #
    David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

    Wow,
    I suspected there would be troubles, but I didn’t expect this, or this soon.
    On the other hand, that there’s been another cover-up is not a surprise.
    Many thanks to Jo and Robert Gottliebsen.
    Cheers,
    Dave B

    150

  • #

    “Electric cars are already causing some grid failures in Australia.”

    Here’s the catch. We, the fully living, think that’s a bad thing. The globocrats and Agenda 21 mob think that’s a good thing. We have to get over this idea that they need to be shown their errors. They want the frustrations, the inefficiencies and debt-funded waste. Do they need to sink another wave generator at your local beach? They love all that green gunk because it is guaranteed to fail from the outset.

    To understand the Undead you have to think (briefly!) like the Undead. They hate and envy the fully living, which I find flattering. Can you imagine the dreariness of shuffling between the UN, Davos and Bilderberg, forever in the company of other shills and urgers? No amount of first-class travel and lobster-sandwiches could make it bearable. Only a special kind of demi-corpse could stand that constant commitment to futility, boredom and malice. All for a sense of control that isn’t worth two bob to the sane and human.

    You can tell I don’t like ’em.

    382

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Beautiful.

      Poetic.

      The “Untouchables” in Canberra- Universities and CSIRO are no doubt being prompted to think. Brexit, Gilletz jaunes and the Will Happer investigation should prompt thought about an escape route.

      It seems that every day now there is another “renewables” venture that doesn’t get off the ground. Lending organizations are reading the wind.

      KK

      172

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      The Undead is a very accurate description…..

      As King Solomon wisely said, there is nothing new under the sun, and he had everything you could have, and more.

      Perhaps the greatest curse, is to have it all. For in that moment, its a “idle hands are put to work by the Devil” situation.

      People who have it all then , full of their own importance, appear to believe ( foolishly ) they can tell everyone else how t live.

      Dumb…wrong….foolish.

      Who in a moment of arrogance or concern that his fellow “master of the universe” uber-wealthy club wont like them?

      If you think of all the hurt in the world, its cased by human frailty, by basic messing up, by wrong doing, our fallen nature, the root cause – sin.

      Why should bored , arrogant and wealthy people be any different to anyone else?

      A doofus with money is still a doofus……

      102

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    “In its report (2006) “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” the U.N. concluded that livestock were contributing 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases — allegedly more than the entire world’s transpiration.

    The U.N. report estimated the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from every aspect of raising meat.

    # # #

    The U.N. did not do the same when estimating the greenhouse gases from cars.

    The report ignored greenhouse gases actually created during the car’s production and instead zeroed in on tailpipe emissions.

    The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the report to forecast that Himalayan glaciers might vanish within 25 years.

    Mitloehner convinced the U.N. to recant its claim in 2010.”

    https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/prof-debunks-flatulence-as-major-cause-of-global-warming/article_1c6c9c5e-2dbb-11e2-9e51-0019bb2963f4.html

    ^ ^ ^
    Based on this failed ‘science’, the CSIRO …

    With the introduction of 100 per cent electric cars to its national fleet, CSIRO is taking further steps to reduce its carbon footprint.

    https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2016/CSIRO-goes-electric-with-green-fleet

    >> And it made no measurable difference to Australia’s climate that the CSIRO can happily report on.

    What a disgusting, ugly waste of tax-payer money.

    150

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      In industry, excluding basic energy calculations like that is a ticket out the front door…..

      70

  • #
    Another Ian

    Not exactly O/T with adaptation (IMO)

    “Laziness and Sweet Lies – The Most Addictive Drugs in the World

    “I could go over many other hypocritical questions I receive, but at the core of all these questions is a fear, cowardice, and laziness that sends these people to my consultancy. These clients simply want a short cut, a cheat code at all things hard at life, and are so afraid of hard work and labor, they will pay money for somebody, ANYBODY to tell then there’s an effortless way to success, happiness, and love. And whereas I simply cannot lie to these people, telling them what they want to hear, there’s no shortage of Oprahs, psychologists, college recruiters, motivational speakers, life coaches, democrats, and other snake oil salesmen who promise people success, happiness, and love all through an easy pill, an easy book, an easy college degree, or an easy $5,000 weekend retreat.”

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/04/10/laziness-and-sweet-lies-the-most-addictive-drugs-in-the-world/#comments

    70

  • #
    TdeF

    What is odd is that hybrid cars are relatively cheap, add nothing much to the weight of the car, are affordable and halve fossil fuel consumption and do not require coal electricity, but no one says anything. That means the full electric car is promoted ahead of a car which is a huge advance for everyone. The Toyota Camry hybrid is only $30,000 and an amazing car, but we are told to buy a 1.52 tonne Nissan Leaf with the range of an extension cord and day to recharge. Why?

    So the agenda is not CO2, it is not savings in cost or pollution, it is certainly not the environment. The agenda is the destruction of the grid, itself a creation on Federalist public servants as we never had one before. Now South Australia and Tasmania are dependent on coal power from Victoria and soon Victoria on NSW and then with the closure of Liddell, NSW on Queensland. This is Greens dominoes, the objective nothing less than the destruction of the country. For the greater good and the revolution to come, Venezuela style socialism.

    370

    • #
      TdeF

      Consider that Teslas are $120,000 – $240,000 and a family Camry hybrid is $30,000. The Tesla is a ridiculous fantasy vehicle for exclusive virtue signalling and poseurs. It is not an environmentally sensitive decision but the height of insensitivity. The Camry is much more environmentally sensitive and the future of motoring in even the short term.

      180

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        The Karbon Debt in working to save the extra money for the Tessler should be an environmental signal that something is wrong with the idea.

        Faux Green.

        KK

        72

    • #
      Peter C

      . For the greater good and the revolution to come, Venezuela style socialism.

      Do not go down that road.

      Vote for the Australian Conservatives (in the Senate) at the upcoming election!
      https://www.conservatives.org.au/

      150

    • #
      Rob Leviston

      I would consider a hybrid way before a pure electric! Still, more complex than my fairly economical diesel van! ( better than 6l/100k’s highway use!)

      70

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        I’ll live with the fuel bills…love my turbo Suby…..

        But if all else fails….there is nothing quite like a V8…….

        90

        • #
          Bodge it an scarpa

          When Shorten wins the keys to the lodge ,Your fuel bills will likely skyrocket to the point where it would be cheaper to get a surgically performed penis extension than run a V8 or your Suby ! 🙂

          00

        • #
          yarpos

          “love my turbo Suby…..”

          Had two over the years , the are great fun. My wife has a basic XV these days, not exciting but a very competent little car. Went back and forward to Sydney (from VIC) last month, very impressive little car.

          10

        • #
          Power Grab

          A V8…ah!!

          Someone asked on a blog recently when was the best era in America. I’m not quoting the question correctly, but you get the idea.

          My thought was the mid-1960’s. Consider the V8! Most all the families I knew had at least one. I drove one when I learned to drive. They were so SWEET to drive on the expressways!

          Then they concocted the oil crisis and reduced the highway speed limit to 55 miles per hour. It had been 70 miles per hour (or even 75 in Kansas, rumor had it). They also introduced smaller cars with smaller engines. I understand that truck drivers’ nickname for the smallest was “shoe”.

          I never owned a V8, myself, even though my parents owned several over the years. My first car was a 4 cylinder Toyota Corona. Eventually, I graduated to 6 cylinder Toyota Cressidas. Now I have a 6 cylinder Buick Century (1991 model) and a 4 cylinder Honda Civic (2002 model).

          The Buick still has quite a bit of get-up-and-go and doesn’t feel scary coming up to speed on the entrance ramp of an expressway or climbing a hill, but I always feel like I’m pushing the Honda a bit too hard in similar situations.

          Here are some of the opening lyrics of a song that (I think) exemplified America in the mid-1960’s:

          “See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet.
          America is asking you to call.”

          Good times, good times! Even the tune of that ditty makes me want to load up a big car and hit the road!

          00

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Just like the vegans, their objective is to destroy capitalism.

      41

  • #
    mmxx

    I’m staggered that NRMA has strongly endorsed the Labor policy to mandate electric vehicles.

    This now-exiting member of NRMA is astounded that the motoring organisation could possibly continue its commitment to emergency rescue/recovery of future members whose vehicles (specifically EVs) are stranded on roadsides throughout NSW when their drivers mistakenly hoped that there were enough remaining amp-hours in the EV battery to get them home. Those stranded drivers will have to wonder if a recharge will occur even if after many hours wait.

    Oh what a miserable (green) feeling lies in front of Australian drivers in future!

    270

    • #
      Peter C

      I better check what the Victorian Association ( RACV) is doing?

      70

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      You’re staggered?

      Do you remember who “privatised” the NRMA?

      Jobs for the family, a la MalEx444.

      But in this case “daddy” was asked to leave by the Queen.

      KK

      62

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      I suspect in the years to come, we might expect a multi-coloured van with streamers flying, turn up to fix your car, and give you a manicure…

      /sarc

      Yeeeeesh….*palm to forehead*

      40

    • #
      mikewaite

      In the UK people have asked whether it is an offence to enter a motorway knowingly without sufficient fuel to exit safely and having
      having to use the hard shoulder to summon assistance. One wonders if it could be regarded by the police as an act of “driving without due care and attention” for example.
      The answer from one source was that it could be an offence, but only likely to be considered as such if running out of fuel resulted in an accident or pile-up.
      I don’t know whether Australian motorway rules are stricter than those in the UK.

      30

    • #
      Dennis

      The NRMA like most organisations have been infiltrated by people from the side of socialism and globalism (PM Abbott said he would not stand for socialism masquerading as environmentalism) including business organisations.

      And the rot set in many years ago.

      The 444 million dollar person’s ambitions include a single all powerful governing party, a republic and changing the Constitution. Consider the Union supported GetUp backed candidates pretending to be independents, sensible right and even conservative Liberal, they are also backed by renewable energy business investors, including merchant bankers.

      If as I suspect the Federal Election results in another hung parliament, as in 2010, there would be another opportunity for an alliance minority government being formed, Labor, Green, Team Independent, maybe. Or Liberal, National and Others. I know which alliance combination I would prefer. And then hope for a return to Making Australia Great Again.

      50

      • #
        Dennis

        There was a hung parliament in 2010 and the Gillard led Labor Government minority alliance was formed with at least two Independents who stood as former National members in what had been and now are National Party electorates again. They were in fact signed up to support Labor from 2008 and recruited because they had previously been NSW State MLA Independents and often supported Labor.

        Former PM Howard said in 2017 that traditionally support for the unofficial two party system was around 80 per cent of voters including swinging voters, and that support has declined to around 60 per cent. Another hung parliament is likely to be the 2019 election result.

        Beware of a group of Independent candidates now being promoted by Union Labor’s GetUp, the Soros and foreign associates propaganda unit founded here via the Australian Workers Union when Bill Shorten was a senior executive there, and later he joined GetUp as a Director.

        Claiming to be Independent candidates for election in electorates held by Liberal and National MPs who have finally got rid of the Liberal In Name Only MPs who had managed to take control and drag the Coalition to the Labor left. At least one is now one of the claimed to be Independent candidates. The Independent group candidate standing against Abbott MP has GetUp campaigning for her, a former senior Labor staffer as her campaign manager, and Green Tim Flannery as an adviser. The GetUp candidate claiming to be from the “sensible right” and even Liberal lite or whatever. Independents who would join a Labor alliance government if elected.

        Don’t be fooled, the 444 million dollar person has worked for many years to get rid of the Coalition centre right and National, and from within their ranks until 2018, and form a single all powerful governing party including Labor and Green, whatever it takes for socialism and globalism to succeed and prosper as parasites in the Australian economy.

        31

  • #
    Rob Leviston

    Hmm. Charging electric cars. What a chore! Imagine Mum pulling up in the garage, goes to the boot, gets the weeks groceries out, and simply goes inside! Cue the morning, Dad jumps in the car, ready to go to work, and……………. Not enough range! Mum forgot to plug ‘er in, didn’t she!
    Cue a night of low wind, grid needs more power, so now all those cars sucking from the grid and called upon to do their bit and ‘help’ the grid along!
    1000 workers ready themselves to commute to work, only to find that their batteries have been sucked dry!
    Sheesh! Is this the world we want to envisage?
    God Bless fossil fuels!

    280

    • #
      Dave Ward

      1000 workers ready themselves to commute to work, only to find that their batteries have been sucked dry!

      This only needs to happen once before people refuse to take part in “Vehicle to Grid” systems. And as soon as that occurs the idea of keeping the lights on with high renewable penetration goes out the window…

      110

    • #
      John in Oz

      I envision seeing many cars on the road with trailing power cords due to forgetting to UN-plug them

      60

    • #
      James

      Just wait until they have teenagers driving. Teenagers never bother refueling!

      120

  • #
    neil

    In 2018 the total worldwide production of electric cars was 2,000,000 half of which were sold in China. The current production of the rare earth metals required to make EV’s is limited to 5,000,000 units pa. most of them will be made and sold in China. Of the maybe 2,000,000 that are sold in the rest of the world, 25% will not be available to Australia.
    My guess by 2030 less than 100,000 EV’s will be sold in Australia, probably less than 50,000. Which is still a lot more than the 1,352 sales in 2018.

    110

  • #
    Mal

    A vote for Shorten is a vote to short the economy and to short the grid.
    A vote for Labor is a vote to reduce power to the people.

    170

  • #
    Mal

    Is the new definition of an ev, ” electricity vandalism”?
    Will their be a new crime in the future, “assault with a battery “?

    100

  • #
    Robert Christopher

    Even worse than the physical explosions is the level of their understanding:
    ‘He talks about intermittent power causing “choppy” electron flows which make transformers hotter …’

    How are they going to rectify 🙂 the problem when their understanding is so limited?

    Their arrogance is a danger to their very existence.

    70

    • #
      yarpos

      “Their arrogance is a danger to their very existence.”

      I almost cared …. I was that close

      10

  • #
    pat

    a much under-reported story.

    includes plenty of sound samples:

    17 Mar: Mashable: Here’s what some electric vehicles will sound like to warn pedestrians
    By Sasha Lekach
    The American rock band Linkin Park is helping Mercedes-AMG come up with just the right sound for its electric performance car.
    That’s not a joke. At the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month, Mercedes executives said the music group would develop the sound the normally quiet battery-powered vehicles would make when driving to alert pedestrians.
    That’s because electric vehicles are pretty much silent, and dangerously so, regulators say…

    As greater numbers of electric vehicles make it onto the road, worries about the potential danger of silent vehicles to pedestrians, cyclists, and blind people grow. The European Union has a new directive requiring all new electric and hybrid vehicles to give a sound warning to pedestrians by 2021. When traveling at speeds below 12 mph, the cars have to emit the sound to give pedestrians a heads up that there’s a vehicle even if they can’t hear it. When going faster than that, the tires against the road, wind resistance against the windshield, and more make the car more audible…

    The U.S. set up a similar requirement for hybrid and all-electric vehicles, though it was delayed and took a while to hash out the details. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require all electric vehicles (and hybrids) to emit a sound while moving up to 18.6 mph by September 2020. (The U.S. settled on a faster speed limit based on arguments that the cars are harder to hear until they’re really moving.) The noise requirement will be phased in to give car makers time to modify the vehicles, with 50 percent of cars required to emit a sound by this September.

    These new requirements mean companies like Mercedes-AMG and beyond need to come up with artificial sounds their electric vehicles will play while moving at slower speeds. Ahead of the deadline, many car companies already have sounds in development and are putting them in cars. Waterproof external speakers will emit the sounds loudly and clearly…

    The Nissan Leaf is one of the more mainstream and affordably priced EVs available. In the U.S., more than 14,700 of the cars were sold last year. It will emit these sounds while going forward and reversing, kind of like the beeping sounds you hear when a truck backs up — but with more musicality…

    Motorcycles are also part of this new regulation, so Harley-Davidson’s new LiveWire electric motorcycle is revving up with an original sound emulating a “real” hog.
    We reached out to Tesla but didn’t hear back about what its pedestrian warning noise will sound like. We recently heard that with Sentry Mode its cars can play loud music as a theft deterrent, but that uses the car’s audio system, not an external speaker.

    Silence is golden, unless you’re in an electric vehicle. Then it’s time to make some noise.
    https://mashable.com/article/electric-vehicles-noise-sound-requirements/

    30

    • #
      nc

      Hey how about playing Stairway to Heaven, a little Zepplin should get pedestrians attention.

      20

    • #
      MudCrab

      Electric cars need a audio warning?

      Hmmmm…

      (types – “wright cyclone radial engines” into search engine)

      (selects “video”)

      (takes PC off mute)

      How much audio warning do you need?? 🙂

      10

    • #
      Plain Jane

      Not a new problem. Hence the Christmas Carol “Jingle Bells”. Particularly relevant in latitudes where the day is short. Horses pulling sleighs can be very quiet and I believe led to accidents. Hence they added sleigh bells to the horses so they could be heard coming. Even more so where it is fairly dark most of the day in high latitudes.

      10

  • #
    pat

    19 Feb: Monash: The silent risks of electric vehicles: how do we ensure pedestrian safety?
    Michael Fitzharris, Associate Professor, Monash University Accident Research Centre
    Sara Liu, Research Fellow, Monash University Accident Research Centre
    By 2050, electric vehicles will be the dominant type on our roads with more than 500 million sold worldwide, at which point the environmental benefits will be fully realised as the internal combustion petrol and diesel engine is consigned to the dustbin…

    Statistics from the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) reveal that between 2008 and 2017 (10-year period), 1724 pedestrians were killed on Australian roads, with close to 75 per cent involving a passenger vehicle. In addition, 21,657 pedestrians were hospitalised between 2008-2015 after being struck by a vehicle…

    According to Vision Australia, more than 380,000 Australians are blind or have low vision…
    When navigating the road network, many pedestrians who are blind or have low vision rely largely on their sense of hearing to determine whether it’s safe to move forward through cross roads…

    In a study conducted by Monash University Accident Research Centre (MUARC), findings from a survey of the blind and low-vision community found that more than one-third of respondents reported having experienced either a collision or near-collision with an electric vehicle…READ ON
    https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2019/02/19/1371473/the-silent-risks-of-electric-vehicles-how-do-we-ensure-pedestrian-safety

    15 Oct 2018: Age: ‘I feel anxious about moving safely’: The dangers of silent, electric cars
    “Particularly for smaller sub-groups of pedestrians who are vulnerable, like children or the elderly, if you’ve got a silent car coming on one end, you might not necessarily respond in time.”

    Whereas the US and Europe have mandated minimum noise levels for electric vehicles, Australia has made no such rule.
    The federal Infrastructure Department, which regulates the country’s car design standards, does not have any plans to introduce one.

    Only 2284 electric vehicles were sold in Australia last year, but it is projected that ***they will account for 90 per cent of all vehicles on the road by 2050…

    It might come as a surprise that most of the accidents occurred around driveways on the footpath (24 per cent) or while at a pedestrian crossing (16 per cent).
    But Mr Edwards, who is also manager of government relations for Vision Australia, said cars travelled slowest in these areas, which made them more dangerous as they made no sound at all…
    https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/i-feel-anxious-about-moving-safely-the-dangers-of-silent-electric-cars-20181012-p5099k.html

    DPTI.SA.gov.au: Tragically one child, often a toddler, is run over in their driveway every week in Australia.
    On average, seven children are killed each year and 60 seriously injured after being hit or run over by a motor vehicle at home. Very young children are at greatest risk. 90% of children killed and 70% of those seriously injured are under five years of age.
    The vehicle is usually only moving slowly and is often being driven by a parent, family member or friend…
    https://www.dpti.sa.gov.au/towardszerotogether/safe_road_users/driveway_safety

    40

  • #
    pat

    9 Apr: CNN: Flying cars could save us from climate change
    By Jen Christensen
    Maybe the Jetsons were climate change activists?
    A new study shows that the cartoon family was on to something when they used a flying car for transportation.
    Several companies and even agencies such as NASA have been scrambling to create flying cars, hoping to launch the service in the next decade, and that may be a part of the answer to help curb climate change, according to a new study (LINK).

    The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications by authors from the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems and Ford Motor Company, compared the energy use of the electric version of flying cars, known as electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft or VTOLs, to that of traditional and electric cars. The study also looked at the time-saving aspect of the vehicles and their overall energy use…

    There are different styles in the works. One example is Uber’s model, which calls for air taxis that can cruise at 150 to 200 miles per hour at an altitude between 1,000 and 2,000 feet, with a battery lasting up to 60 miles before needing to recharge…
    https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/health/flying-cars-emissions-climate-change-scn/index.html

    40

    • #
      James

      You would not even have the minimum VFR reserve with a 60 mile range. VFR reserve is 30 minutes. IFR you need to have fuel to an alternate, then 45 minutes. I cannot see the FAA ever allowing any of this.

      50

    • #
      tom0mason

      It’ll happen when pigs fly!

      Have they got a farm/government-bureaucrat/climate-researcher version?
      Got to get those pigs comfortably to the troughs some how.
      Uber-oink air-taxi anyone?

      30

    • #
      Rob Leviston

      Flying cars could save us? Interesting concept, but bleedingly false! Takes more energy to get that weight off the ground, than it does just moving forward!
      I mean, how many planes would get the equivalent of between 5-10 l/100k’s? (for ref, a Cessna 172 may get around 12.5 mpg!)

      20

      • #
        tom0mason

        Rob Leviston,

        Yes but just think of all the researchers that could be employed if we just specified the problem better then applied more tax-payer money for researching this. And given enough funds they will soon virtually crack the problem. Yes, really!
        It really doesn’t matter that the problem is mostly a fiction or hocus-pokus, correct consensus answers to any problem are always evident when the ‘solutions’ research is subsidized enough.
        All you just have to do is specify the requirements correctly …

        e.g. show evidence of man-man global warming.
        Apply massive funding.
        And BINGO!
        There it is!

        As all bureaucrats know, that is all it takes to scientifically prove whatever political agenda an administration wishes to promote.

        10

    • #
      yarpos

      Flying cars, what BS. I routinely drive through a windy stretch of road leading to the outskirts of our State capital. I routinely watch people struggling to to control their cars in 2 dimensions with minimal rules and controls. The idea of these people , so crippled in hand eye coordination and intellect , controlling an aircraft in 3 dimensions and complying with various aviation rules is.totally.laughable.

      30

  • #
    RickWill

    I have only seen 2 Teslas in our immediate area. There are noticeably more houses with solar panels this year than 12 months ago.

    We have had two unscheduled power outages already this year. Normally the average is about once every 3 years and inevitably weather related with sometimes to or three reclosures before recovery. The recent outages were unrelated to “demand management”. One may have been due to wind although it was relatively mild – maybe 80kph at the time.

    All the dirty loads and generation being added to the grid must be creating issues for older transformers that were not designed for fast rising harmonics now common on the power system.

    In the late 1980s I spent almost 2 years negotiating with Elcom in NSW to get a 10MW dirty load connected to the grid. We had to jump through a lot of hoops to achieve that. These days they just connect hundreds of megawatts of dirty intermittents and expect the grid to cope.

    The one certainty remains – the cost of grid power will continue to rise. If you have the facility to make your own then enjoy the government largesse while available and have a plan to go off grid when the economics favour that avenue.

    110

  • #
    George4

    lives in a street where there are six Tesla cars. When they all try to charge their batteries at the same time, the power goes out in the street because the grid fails.

    I wonder what “power goes out” actually means in terms of physical fault in this particular case (ie blown transformer)?

    Sometimes it fails when only three or four of them try to charge at the same time.

    How did they even find this out ?

    It seems rather odd as this says an Electric car charges around 7,500 Watts, less than an electric heater, and a common water heater charges at around 4,500 Watts.

    https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fact-995-september-18-2017-electric-vehicle-charging-home-typically-draws

    21

    • #

      …..around 7,500 Watts, less than an electric heater….

      Whoops!

      Tony.

      40

      • #
        George4

        a typical electric furnace draws about 10,000 watts

        I don’t know what they call that in Australia.

        But anyway surely most people would home charge electric cars off peak when there is little demand on the grid, and it is a lot cheaper ?

        That is the advantage of car battery vs an air conditioner, for example.

        21

    • #
      RickWill

      The new Teslas have home chargers rated at 16.5kW. My average household demand is 0.17kW. There are times when the microwave, toaster, water jug and oven might produce a concurrent peak of say 10kW but it is momentary; typically less than a minute with next to zero thermal stress in the electrical supply. If the three Teslas lob in at 6:30pm and plug in then they could be sucking 16.5kW for 4 or 5 hours while meals are being prepared and the solar panels doing nothing. In the first hour they will suck the life out of the respective Powerwalls; then totally reliant on the grid that the plebs pay for.

      The other factor hitting the inner burbs is the increasing housing density. Our outer SE suburb is going through the first transition where 1200sq.m blocks are being subdivided in to 300sq.m for redevelopment. Go 20km closer to the city and the 1000sq.m blocks are being bought in number and low rise apartment blocks going up. Within 10km of the city and closer the low rise built 20 years ago is being replaced with high rise. All the infrastructure is becoming stressed. Road and rail the most visible.

      I remember that during the 2018 Australian Tennis Open final parts of Melbourne inner city were blacked out so the air-conditioners in Rod Laver Arena could be kept running for the A-list crowd. There is not much spare capacity in the system. There have been gains in electrical efficiency but that is being outpaced by immigration and concentration of growing population around city centres.

      120

      • #
        George4

        If the three Teslas lob in at 6:30pm and plug in

        That would be a bit silly when they could charge off peak, cheaper, when the grid is comparatively unused.

        Not saying it wouldn’t happen, but if it is causing street failures, I think the Tesla owners would quickly learn to be more sensible.

        21

        • #
          David Wojick

          If there come to be a lot of EVs charging off peak that will become the new peak.

          90

        • #
          RickWill

          That would require an off peak rate to be offered in the location and a grid controlled outlet. What if the owner wanted to charge through the day?

          I don’t think anyone buying a Tesla in Australia is doing it for the economy. Despite their sleek appearance they weigh over 2 tonne. They are behemoths.

          40

        • #
          Graeme No.3

          George,
          do sensible people buy a Tesla ?

          20

        • #
          Chad

          Pending on your electricity supplier, and weather you have been switched to a “smart meter” charge system,….you may well find that there is no longer an “Off Peak” option. !
          Most consumption is charged proportional to actual usage .

          20

  • #
    George4

    The new Teslas have home chargers rated at 16.5kW.

    It would be unusual to draw anywhere near that at home on single phase 240v.

    Single Phase HPWC
    This unit operates off single phase 240V (or 230V in some areas) power, and can be set to deliver 10A, 16A 32A or 40A. Normally you would set it to as high as you can for the power available, which your electrician can advise you on. If set to 40A, this will provide 9.6kW

    https://www.teslaowners.org.au/charging

    31

    • #
      RickWill

      Here they are talking about 3 phase 32A. If you dropped $200k on a battery car, you would not blink at paying for a 3-phase connection if you did not already have it.
      https://www.teslaowners.org.au/charging

      or a third party high power EVSE (all discussed below), which are in turn plugged into a power source which might be anything from a 3 phase 32A socket down to a regular 10A single phase household power point.

      A $3600 option is to add a second charger.

      A single onboard charger is limited to 11kW max charge rate – this equates to approximately 55km per hour of charging time added to your range. Having the second onboard charger installed in your car doubles this to 22kW max charge rate, which equates in practice to approximately 110km/hour of range added. I say “approximately” as your actual charge rate will vary from this due to a range of factors, the most significant of which is variations in your supply voltage.

      The post 2016 Model S has 16.5kW standard.

      For those with the newer 2016 Model S (with the updated nose cone area), the charger is a factory option only for earlier versions of this model. You can order either the standard 11kW charger as supplied with the old model, or a larger 16.5kW charger,

      Then there is the question of how many Tesla owners are “considerate”.

      70

    • #
      Robber

      A 16.5 kW charger will take 4 hours to charge a 66 kW EV from empty. At 240 volts that requires nearly 70 amps. The typical house has 10-30 amp circuits with a total of 100 amps, or up to 200 amps for larger houses. The biggest power usage is generally a water heater and clothes dryer, both about 4-5 kW (30 amps), and oven 2.5 kW.
      My local shopping centre has installed two 6.6 kW EV charging bays (with free electricity), so in one hour you will get enough power to take you about 30 kms. How long before there is a new phobia – fear of being left powerless in your car? Just as there is now Nomophobia – fear of being without your phone.

      70

  • #
    Lance

    As “an Engineering type”, I should advise rational suspicions about the “Faraday Exchanger” and associated things.

    “The Faraday Grid Project is managed by Exigen Pty Ltd” and their site will help you to win BS bingo in a heartbeat” https://www.exigen.com.au/

    Very little is found on their system in terms of block diagrams, power capacities, etc. It “sounds” very much like a computer optimized synchronous condenser from what I can gather.

    Lots of hype on what it “can” do, but little info on costs, ROI, capacities, placement with respect to grid loads, etc.

    I wouldn’t invest a single farthing in this without concrete and transparent explanations of many things.

    170

    • #
      ivan

      I am another ‘engineering type’ and like you I consider this ‘Faraday Exchanger’ to be be nothing more than marketing hype and very much pie in the sky. The marketing hype is designed to fool gullible virtue signalling types into feeling good.

      If they actually had a product they would be plastering the names of who is using it all over their website rather than using just video animations. Also if it was in use we would be hearing about how it worked from grid administrators.

      At the moment it appears to be nothing more than pixy dust being spread by unicorn farts.

      110

    • #

      I’m not an engineering type, but, to my shame, I have in the past done some down-and-dirty advertising for businesses that needed it urgently. Faraday and Gottliebsen are just doing some advertising here. It goes on all the time, of course.

      I don’t resent Murdoch for surviving and even thriving as others go under in a very tough game, and I appreciate the occasional conservative slant as relief from the earnest teenie-bopper guff at other MSM outlets. But I do know that when I open one of his papers (usually on hols with family who buy them) I’m looking at a whole lot of advertising, promos, stock boosts, commercial favours and political favours.

      That’s life. But I’m rating Faraday with Peter Fitzroy’s miracle battery guys who used to be Alevo. The rating is: Maybe…but almost certainly not.

      40

  • #

    “…give me one reason not to just use cheap clean brown coal for the next 300 years…”

    You have a lot of coal powered vehicles in Australia, do you?

    21

  • #
    Dennis

    The Australian reports that a 50 per cent EV fleet would cost the Federal Government $10 billion in lost fuel tax revenue.

    As if any future government would accept that loss, they would transfer it to EV via charging or road use.

    90

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    This thread seems to assume that the grid and generating capacity are static, hence the moans about the load the EV’s cause will break it.
    But the physical parts of the grid are responding to all sorts of changes, for example – new housing estates, changes in industrial production etc.
    For generating capacity, as everyone understands, supply and demand are managed on a minute by minute basis, longer term requirements can be deduced by looking at the historical supply curves.
    My point is that as demand increases, the grid will respond, as it does now. Would there be a huge cost? Not necessarily, The NBN showed that services can be supplied at a relatively low cost. New subdivisions come with power water sewage and fibre pre installed, and the necessary extra infrastructure like transformers.

    217

    • #
      AndyG55

      Grid cannot respond until there is a lot more reliable electricity available.

      New subdivisions are a very minor part of human infrastructure.

      You are in your delusional fantasy land, yet again, pfutz.

      “The NBN showed that services can be supplied at a relatively low cost.”

      ROFLMAO !! There’s that slap-stick comedy of yours pfutz.. Very funny 🙂

      111

      • #
        Dennis

        The NBN that was first estimated to cost $4 billion and then changed to $40 billion and so far has cost $70 billion with more work to be done to complete it.

        Now outdated technology (fibre optic cable) by wireless 5G and latest satellite technology. As many warned Labor, NBN will become a stranded asset with no prospect of it being sold, most definitely not for plus $70 billion.

        91

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Te NBN charges for use of its network (which by law is a monopoly), any attempt to assign a cost to it must account for the revenue it is generating

          011

      • #
        tom0mason

        Yes but AndyG55,
        in some people’s mind there are no absolute costs, everything is relative.
        However as many people know, ultimately some relatives are far more costly than others. 🙂

        50

    • #
      Dennis

      And how would “the grid” respond to the increasing demand for energy with coal fired power stations marked for closure and no reliable generators to replace them?

      For example, Liddell Power Station to be shut down, 2,000 MW and 4 generator units. Capital Wind Farm has nameplate capacity of 140 MW so capacity factor at best 35% being 49 MW ….. standing on 15,000 acres of land (6,000 hectares) with 67 wind turbines.

      There is not enough suitable land in Australia, let alone within the main interconnected electricity grid, to even match the existing coal fired power station combined generating capacity.

      80

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        Dennis, I would suggest that we know what the demand is now, and we can forecast what it will be in the future, then the libertarian response would be, please tender to supply electricity, supplied at this cost or better, with these QOS rules and see what happens. This can also be done with replacing current generation capacity.

        211

        • #
          AndyG55

          “This can also be done with replacing current generation capacity.”

          Very little of the current generation capacity needs “replacing” (except in cases of unreliability, ie wind and solar)

          The system needs augmenting with reliable new supplies.

          The cheapest of these being coal and gas.

          91

        • #
          MudCrab

          I would suggest, Peter, that we knew what the demand was THEN, and we still went and farced it up NOW.

          The libertarian response would be why are we wasting money on things that work fine when we can be giving out arts grants and embracing social awareness. Also, tax big business.

          You also seem to think that all we need to do is replace current generation capacity. Well, young Peter, in case you were not paying attention, we did. Port Augusta? Replaced. Hazelwood? Replaced.

          The word you are looking for is INCREASE, but then the other words you would be also needing would be DISTRUBUTION. Doesn’t matter how many kegs you have in the cellar, unless you have more than one tap and one barmaid you are still only pouring one beer at a time.

          Also, in answer to your earlier post, just how many Australians live in a ‘New Subdivision’? More to the point, have you ever even being involved in designing a ‘New Subdivision’? (Yes I have, thanks for asking. Like to talk storm water?). Your intent may be pure, but your knowledge base has fallen over.

          71

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            No mudcrab, I’m not suggesting anything like that. please read my post. I specifically said that the physical grid is not static and is always changing. As to generation, I’m proposing that instead of picking any technology, we choose to ask for so many megawatts of power delivered to a quality of service metric, with a ceiling price. Let the market decide how to do deliver that. Although you seem to want to conflate them
            The jibe about not knowing how to build a stormwater system in a subdivision is just waffle, I was using the services provided in such a development as an example. I could have just as easily talked about high rise units. Secondly, when was subdivision design ever a requirement to comment on this blog, a bit elitist of you don’t you think?

            08

            • #
              AndyG55

              “ever a requirement to comment on this blog”

              A little bit of knowledge about something might help you, pfutz

              You are still batting zero from many.

              You bring a high level of ignorance to the blog with basically every comment you make.

              00

    • #
      David Wojick

      The surface transportation system requires an amount of energy that is similar to that required by the present electric power system. Having the electric power system supply a significant fraction of the transportation energy in a relatively short period of time, like several decades, is economically impossible. It may even be physically impossible under any reasonable scenario. These are two enormous energy systems. One cannot suddenly start running off the other.

      70

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        David, I’m saying that if you are forecasting an additional load, be it an aluminum smelter, of lots of EV’s the grid will respond. Say for EV’s there is a forecast by both parties of 25% by 2030. A sensible response would be to start the build now.

        212

        • #
          Chad

          ……
          My point is that as demand increases, the grid will respond, as it does now.

          Yes Peter, you are correct….
          The grid will respond to significant additional load with “Demand Management” ..( Rolling blackouts)…importing from other states tempoarily, more “intermittents” that will not respond all the time,.. Emergency diesel generators,……. and similar knee jerk responses

          111

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            I’m talking about a plan, you are blathering

            212

            • #
              AndyG55

              Only “blathering” is coming from you, pfutz.

              You know the only realistic “plan” is more coal fired DISPATCHABLE electricity supply.

              Can you say..

              “Time to build more coal fired power plants” ?

              And you know the reason that is not happening, don’t you.

              80

            • #
              Chad

              No Peter, i am talking about what actually happens, …
              You are dreaming about what you think should happen ,,,,(ie, idealism)
              the problem is there is no realistic plan that will provide significant extra continuous power in the future .

              70

              • #

                Here in Texas, we have the ideal transitional solution: wind farms with associated natural gas peakers. The turbines keep our energy prices down (our LCOE is $29/MWh) and the gas turns on and off on a dime (unlike coal, which, once it starts burning, can’t simply be turned off) whenever new, unexpected demand is needed.

                Additional, difficult to predict electrical demand caused by EV usage is no problem for wind/gas based energy systems.

                24

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                That is exactly what I’m saying, and keep repeating, there needs to be a policy, and from that policy a plan can be developed.

                09

              • #
                yarpos

                Most of the responses I see from Texas are those that believe nameplate epower equals real power and that the State has masses of wind power and is somehow immune to the global capacity factor for 30% ish. I seriously doubt Texas will be any less stressed than other locations by rapid EV take up.

                30

              • #

                Oh, Texas may be stressed, but we can ramp up rapidly. At any rate, most EVs charge at home, overnight. Because most EVs are programmable, it wouldn’t be difficult to have them cycle on after midnight, when usage as ebbed because businesses are closed and people are asleep. The easiest way to encourage that is for energy companies to charge less for electricity at those hours. My own plan allows free energy after midnight and on Saturdays and Sundays all day precisely for that reason. My smart thermometer (a Nest) also customizes the timing for heating and cooling cycles to avoid high demand periods. I get a monthly discount for letting the power company communicate with my Nest for that purpose. Doing the same with EV charging cycles wouldn’t be that difficult.

                00

              • #
                AndyG55

                Trouble is, both Liberal and Labor parties have the WRONG policy.

                And no actual thought-through plan of how to implement what they do have.

                Greens are even worse, with policies based on manic lunacy !

                00

            • #
              MudCrab

              AOC had a plan.

              She was The Boss.

              Napoleon had a plan.

              It involved invading Russia.

              Stalin had a plan.

              Five years. Starved all those troublesome peasants.

              Japan had a plan before Midway.

              It involved dividing their entire fleet into multiple unsupporting task forces, spreading them from the artic circle to the equator and then trying to work out if Kidō Butai was meant to be reducing the US land forces or protecting against the US Navy (and failing at both).

              Having a ‘plan’ means nothing in itself.

              I mean even *I* have a plan. It is to spend a lazy hour trolling every one of your posts using a mix of passive aggression, basic engineering principles, more passive aggression and then snark mixed with sarcasm. By your argument the fact I have ‘a plan’ counters anything you have to say, so best you Green Thumb me and go spend the rest of the day watching the YouTubes. By your own ‘plan based’ admission, you cannot best me.

              60

              • #
                yarpos

                To quote Mike Tyson “everyone has a plan , until they are punched in the mouth”

                I suggest reality is winding up

                30

        • #
          AndyG55

          But the grid HASN’T responded.

          It has been over-run by the anti-CO2 agenda.

          That is why things are often on a knife edge in high demand situations.

          The AGW Agenda of subsidies and mandated supplies of unreliables stops the market from responding in a sensible way

          With our coal reserves there is absolutely no excuse for the way the current system is.

          101

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            Well there was the one time when they planners got it wrong, and that was the replacement by consumers of the old CRT screens with the newer flat versions which draw much less power. This was a major reason for the ‘gold plating’ claims, as the grid was being upgraded to handle the increased demand, but demand actually decreased for a while. This what I mean by saying that the grid is not static.

            111

            • #
              AndyG55

              The so-called “gold plating” was mainly to do with trying to cope with the unreliability of wind and solar.

              That is where the BIG costs have come from.

              90

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Really? You might want to check a few facts first.

                010

              • #
                AndyG55

                I have, from guys who work in the industry.

                80

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Well Andy I also worked for a distribution company, and that drop in demand was real. In areas of expansion like on the coast you can find sites earmarked to major substaions which are still idle, 15 years after they we leveled and fenced.

                08

              • #
                yarpos

                and of course that will continue just like batteries will cost nothing in a few years

                40

              • #
                AndyG55

                “I also worked for a distribution company”

                That allows to post on forums during the day. Really ?????

                Yeah, right pfutz !!

                With people like you working for them, no wonder things are not functioning too well.

                30

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Andy ,please.

                This is Cyndi now.

                00

        • #
          AndyG55

          A sensible response would be to start the build now.

          Yes, a new HELE coal or gas powered station in each state should be already happening.

          Now just what is stopping that from happening?

          The Anti-CO2 anti-development, anti-life, regressive AGW Agenda.

          All the funds WATSED on wind and solar would have given tus plentiful reliable electricty for years to come.

          Instead we have this current mess, an both major political parties INTENT on making it worse.

          101

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            yep – which is why when asked about my voting intentions, I’m saying show me your energy policy and show me your environmental one while your at it.

            111

            • #
              MudCrab

              My apologies, Peter. I didn’t realise we had so much in common.

              I too like to like to see energy policies, and then if they mention the environment I bid them good day and tell them to get off my front doorstep.

              81

              • #
                Peter Fitzroy

                Good point MudCrab, I see the two policy areas as separate, and independant, ie energy security can not be constrained by environmental concerns, although it could be modified by them. This is the basis of most of the planning instruments used today.

                07

            • #
              AndyG55

              Environmental policy should be to try to look after REAL pollution, which is what developed countries with solid electricity supplies do, and realise that atmospheric CO2 is essential for life on Earth, and is pretty much below the low end of what is needed for optimum biosphere growth.

              81

          • #
            Bill in Oz

            GO NUCLEAR ANDY !

            40

      • #
        Robber

        Don’t forget that in the next decade smelters and other high electricity using industries will close in Australia due to high energy costs. And don’t forget – rooftop solar to charge your EV. Oh wait, that’s only 7 kW at noon, so will need to leave the EV at home all day to charge (will need to have two, or three!). The next climate change scam is coming.

        70

        • #
          yarpos

          no, you will have your mega almost free battery installation charging so it can charge your other batteries when you get home. Its all very efficient and almost free.

          20

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Congratulations Peter Fitzroy, another subject you know nothing about. You haven’t even read that the original problem was too high a demand in an existing enclave of wealth. Are the suppliers going to up-grade transformers because people buy Teslas? And who will pay for that? The Government, I hear you cry…and just where does the Government get the money to subsidise selfish show offs.

      I suggest you don’t post on euanmeans. One troll barged in with renewables nonsense and was cut to ribbons repeatably by the regular commentators. He soon stopped making comments. I can’t even remember his name now.

      111

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        What a brilliant comment Grame No. 3. You make assumptions, dodge the point, and go off on tangents. I’m saying that the grid and generation capacity is not static. Do you dispute that, or are you part of Kinky and Bill’s blowhard group?

        214

        • #
          AndyG55

          No pfutz, you have gone off on a tangent as always. Delusional, wishful thinking

          The fact is that the grid HASN’T responded, and is not able to do so because of the brain-washed anti-CO2 political climate.

          Adding more demand to a system that is not able to respond or be updated because of the current idiotic anti-CO2 anti-reliable energy political stupidity is asking for trouble.

          121

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Speaking of Blowhards.

          The system has timed out. No notification of action on your part.

          Thank you for so clearly showing your True Colours.

          Keith.

          70

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            what a childish remark Kinky. I was never going to respond to a dare from someone who hides behind a moniker like yours

            09

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              There’s no hiding, Blowhard.

              This was always going to be monitored by the blog administrator.

              I have purchased chocolates a few hours ago: enough for both of us: FreeLoader.

              Keith.

              60

      • #
        George4

        Are the suppliers going to up-grade transformers because people buy Teslas? And who will pay for that?

        How about the Tesla owners with much bigger electricity bills.
        That is how the free market works.

        I thought that the mantra around here was everyone should use as much electricity as they like for a good lifestyle, without restrictions.
        But now apparently it is a sin to use electricity for EVs.

        13

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          YES IT IS A SIN, a big bloody sin.
          Why ?

          Because the electricity grid is not built to handle mass EV charging.

          And attempting to do so will be expensive and cause many burn outs along the way.

          If EV folk want to drive around in EV’s, maybe they should set up and pay for their own dedicated grid.

          60

          • #
            Peter Fitzroy

            But it can be, carn’t it. The physical grid already responds to housing demands, industrial demands, medical (mostly imaging and cancer treatment need lots) demands. An EV demand is just more of the same. Generators will be only too happy to supply extra if asked.

            29

            • #
              AndyG55

              ” The physical grid already responds “

              WAKE UP, pfutz.

              That response is limited to what electricity is available, and what can be put through the system.

              The first is being severely constrained by the anti-O2 idiocy.

              The second will require large network upgrades if EVs become common.

              You are, as always, living in a fool’s fantasy, devoid of any actual reality.

              10

          • #
            yarpos

            They say we shouldnt have aircons either Bill, whats the diff? Its just load/demand

            50

  • #
    David Wojick

    Surely the grid engineers have done studies on the impossibility of serving a lot of EVs without extensive rebuilding of the grid. It should be relatively simple to work this out and the power companies do lots of computer simulations. Likewise, the government engineers overseeing the power companies must have done a bunch of modeling. If not in Oz then in the U.S. or UK or Germany. Where are these studies?

    We cannot rebuild the entire grid, from the house up, to serve EVs. It cannot be done. No country can afford this.

    But if China has a million EVs in service, how do they do it? Is it because they have just built entire cities from scratch? Or the EVs are small? Or their population huge? Or what?

    50

  • #
    Bill in Oz

    Dopey ABC is boosting electric vehicles this morning again !
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/electric-cars-regional-australia-hydrogen-power-exports-policy/10988844
    Maybe Emily there at the ABC should read a few of the comments here on Jo Nova.

    Or would that be emotionally too destructive to her ideology and life view ?

    61

  • #
    George4

    Theoretically I would guess that EVs would reduce the cost of electricity.
    For example if an area starts to use twice the total electricity it did before, after a period of adjustment, the total cost to supply would not double, so the cost per kWh would drop.

    14

  • #
    George4

    .
    Petrol Energy density 9.5 kWh/litre
    — Cost per litre (ex tax 41.6¢) = 90¢
    Cost per kWh = 9.5¢/kWh

    Electricity (Ausgrid sydney) off peak = 18.0 ¢/kWh

    If we assume that an electric car is twice as efficient as a petrol car (peak 80% vs 40%, both much less in the real world), then the actual cost of energy is roughly the same by my calculation.

    But if you add the fixed daily supply charge and peak electricity rate then it is higher for electric.

    30

  • #
    crakar24

    A work colleague of mine visited relatives in Canada, they had a top of the range Tesla SUV.

    You would get around 320K’s from each charge and around 300K in winter. 12 hour charge at home and a 4o minute charge at the fast charge stations, however a lot of the times most fast chargers were broken.

    At one station in the USA 5 of 6 stations were broken and with two cars in front of them is was a 90 minute wait with two screaming kids in the back because you have no where else to go.

    This is the future Labor style.

    61

    • #
      Gee aye

      or they open more charge stations and keep them in good repair. And if the technologies increase at the rate they have in the last 10 years, it wont be so bad in 2030

      26

      • #
        Bill in Oz

        Demand low = low installation and repair rate = lots of wasted time and frustrated EV folk.

        🙂

        31

      • #
        crakar24

        Or…………you accept reality for what it is despite the headaches and nausea it gives.

        21

  • #
    pat

    9 Apr: WSJ: Get Ready for a Pileup, Tesla
    The company braces for a $300 billion onslaught of money-losing green cars.
    by Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
    Now Wall Street finds Tesla sales are not adding up as hoped this year. Morgan Stanley is forecasting 344,000, below the low end of Tesla’s last predicted range. An obvious culprit is the dwindling U.S. tax rebate to buyers…

    Worse for Tesla, the $7,500 rebate will continue to apply in full to a tidal wave of electric cars about to hit the U.S. market. This onslaught—coming from Mercedes, VW, BMW , Volvo, Porsche, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, you name it—is the fruit of an estimated $300 billion in capital the industry has committed to building money-losing electric cars.

    A report out last month from McKinsey tells the story: These cars cost an average of $12,000 more to produce than they can fetch in the marketplace. The role of regulation in causing this pileup “cannot be overstated,” the report adds, while proposing somewhat desperately that the industry try to save itself by “decontenting” its electric vehicles—that is, getting rid of every unnecessary frill and luxury, such as display screens, fancy seating, power windows or anything else that adds costs to what are essentially compliance vehicles…

    Unfortunately, unlike these companies, Tesla needs to make a profit from its electric cars. It doesn’t have a gasoline-car business. It can match other makers loss for loss only if investors are willing to keep throwing new capital into the company, and they no longer are…

    Let’s also acknowledge that the insanity here is partly Mr. Musk’s own doing. He promoted the myth of the electric car as a solution to climate change. This column warned nine years ago, just before Tesla’s initial public offering, that political favoritism and tax handouts were drawing into the market for electric cars companies that had long experience building cars. Importantly, these companies also had large unionized workforces and lobbyist armies that would give them influence over regulation to dwarf whatever political clout Tesla could hope to muster.

    Not even our cynicism, however, was up to anticipating the fallout that would actually materialize: The world’s traditional car industry, even as it continues to churn out 79 million vehicles annually, has been incentivized everywhere to divert some of its profits to making life miserable for the one company that genuinely thirsts to make electric cars and needs to be able to make them profitably.

    This outcome has many fathers, including the world media, which has been undiscerning in its cheerleading for electric cars. Bloomberg News recently celebrated the fact that one-third of new cars in Norway were electric. Unmentioned was the litany of handouts that make an electric car a no-brainer for many Norwegians, from giant tax breaks to free parking and even free charging.

    The kicker is that Norway can afford its electric car habit partly because it’s one of the world’s biggest oil and gas exporters. Pretty much the same basic model now has been adopted by green regulators everywhere. The world is ruthlessly promoting an electric-car industry that is a hothouse flower and will need massive and continuing subsidies from buyers and users of gasoline-powered cars.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-a-pileup-tesla-11554851747

    60

  • #

    It seems to me that this sort of demand shifting means coal is in trouble. You can’t ramp coal plants up and down (though up is easier than down) as speedily as you can with, say, natural gas. And, if you have enough natural gas plants that can power up and down flexibly, then you can also deal with wind and solar intermittency issues much more easily.

    Coal simply can’t keep up with the influx created by these EVs and the already ubiquitous intermittent energy generators. Natural gas can, so long as you also have some fast batteries to kick in for those fractions of a second that fossil fuel plants need to respond to new demand.

    00

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      Hah !

      The EV owners will be really happy to pay for expensive gas fired electricity to power their Teslamobiles !

      I suspect they might stay in the shed as icons of stupidity -and petrol or LPG used far more !

      22

      • #

        I am in Texas. Natural gas is pretty darned cheap here. It should be cheap in Australia, too, except you export so much of it you’re competing with China for your own gas.

        20

        • #
          Graeme#4

          Not entirely Richard. Here in Western Australia, we have a fixed domestic gas reservation policy, so we can both export gas and use it to generate electricity. The main problem is with states such as Victoria and NSW who won’t frak their own gas, instead planning to import it all the way from China. We could build pipelines from up north where there is plenty of gas, but for some reason they reckon this is too expensive. Unlike the U.S., land owners are not paid for anything taken from under their land, so naturally they oppose gas fracking.

          00

          • #

            This is the issue, though. Why should they buy gas from China when China is getting it from Western Australia? That’s an indication that Australia is over exporting. It might be the case that Victoria and NSW should frack, but I don’t really understand where the richest fields are, so I can’t say.

            But, either way, it should be cheaper and easier to buy from wherever in Australia gas is being drilled. As far as I’m concerned, securing a sufficient domestic energy supply is a national security issue. And if exports get in the way of that security, then exports should be curtailed.

            About 10% of Australia is powered by wind and solar, now. And, for good or ill, that share is only going to grow. You’re going to need plants that can turn on and off rapidly, and that ain’t coal.

            11

            • #
              Chad

              About 10% of Australia is powered by wind and solar, now. And, for good or ill, that share is only going to grow. You’re going to need plants that can turn on and off rapidly, and that ain’t coal…….

              Richard,
              ….wind and solar supply less than 4% of. Australias electricity.
              Australia has a minimum grid load never less than approx 18 GW, and a prdictable max demand of around 30 GW
              What is needed is reliable base load capacity of low cost generation.nota compromise , costly , back-up for wind and solar that themselves only add to power costs.
              Once you get over the fobia of CO2, coal is the obvious choice if nuclear is not to be considered (it should be first choice)

              00

            • #
              Robert Swan

              About 10% of Australia is powered by wind and solar, now. And, for good or ill, that share is only going to grow.

              A bold prediction, but probably wrong. They’re on their way up now, to be sure, but in a decade’s time when many early wind turbines will be worn out — well, they may describe themselves as “renewable”, but how many will be renewed? We might find our hillsides graced with monuments less pretty, but no more useful, than Easter Island statues. Same story for solar panels.

              The funny thing is that when we have passed “peak wind” and “peak solar”, we still won’t be anywhere near “peak coal”.

              00

    • #
      yarpos

      You dont need to ramp them up and down, thats a false argument. They run steady baseload, and gas and hydro are ramped up and own. Solar and wind do whatever they do , they really dont count as you cant rely on them.

      21

  • #
    Bruce Donaldson Scott

    Thank you Jo, I have noticed that “totalitarianism”is becoming very chic amongst our “leaders” in all institutions.

    20

  • #
    LightningCamel

    Have a look at the wind energy production for the whole country currently at about 7%, increase that as a proportion of generation and then try to charge your car.
    See here

    10

  • #
    A gentleman (not really)

    Re: coal:

    Could all the CO2 produced be piped up to some giant tree farm, thus birthing a thriving new logging industry whilst protecting our old growth forests?

    This is a serious question, it just looks stupid because I don’t know anything

    20

  • #
    LightningCamel

    That’s 7% of capacity.
    There has been a lot of discussion of the grid responding to the change in demand. While that could happen the electricity market is so distorted by government intervention that the market signals are lost. Obviously renewables will not work in any sort of efficient manner because of the cost of backup requirements and the real efficient generators are not being built or are being closed by companies who see their future in subsidy farming and increasing overall cost.

    Shorten talks about installing charging stations on highways. Think about the number of cars on the Hume highway, look at the infrastructure already in place to fuel them maybe every 600km with a fuelling process that takes all of 5 minutes then figure out the size of the installations which will be needed to charge half of those cars every 300km when the process takes hours. Then add in the transmission infrastructure to provide the power. The market would charge that to the users but in Bill’s world that will be charged to us, costing us jobs, infrastructure, schools, hospitals or perhaps the kennel I will need to move into in a decade or two.

    And for what? The CO2 cost of all that infrastructure alone will take decades to repay, if ever, and the energy used will mostly produce CO2 as well so the whole thing is pointless. Its just a socialists wet dream.

    20

    • #

      All that that waste of productivity.To what end? Poor fraught CO2…

      #Primo Levi Story of a carbon atom: essential for all living things.

      #Trees, bamboo, wheat fields, pond scum, just suck it up, strip the air above of CO2 in a matter of days. See E.M. Smith, ‘Get Wood.’ If CO2 gets below 220pm, plants die. Famine and domino effect on homo-sapien ensues.

      #Political Cli-Sci: carbon atom the means to a new world order of energy control. IPCC policy, UNEP directed, ‘We’re on a Mission from Guv. IPCC official, Ottmar Edenhoffer: ‘The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually and economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.’ (14/11/11.)

      #The cli-sci models don’t correlate with observations. Oh mann!!

      #The science: Troposphere Hot Signature is missing in action. See Dr David Evans, ‘The Missing Hotspot.’

      #Warming feedback can’t be demonstrated… Effects of clouds? They don’t know clouds at all.

      #Bureau of Meteorology: adjusting the temp record to salvage the AGW theory. Darwin, oops!

      #CO2 relative to other gasses: just a teeny-teeny part of atmosphere, nitrogen 78%, oxygen 21%, CO2 0.038%.

      #Likely has a slightly cooling effect: See page 5 Table of paper below.
      ref, http://www.calqlata.com/Maths/Formulas_¬Atmosphere.html

      32

  • #
    Bengt Abelsson

    We are used to filling up our gas / petrol / diesel cars at a pump, it takes say 6 minutes for a 50 liter fill.
    That is 500 kWh worth of energy in 1/10 of a hour, or using Tesla terms, 5000 kW power.
    An electric car would need say half of that, so 2,5 MW would be a reasonable size of the fast charger.
    Good luck with that.

    30

    • #

      Virtually all EVs get charged at home. Some charge at the office, if they can arrange for that. Unless you’re on a road trip, you won’t be going to a station at all. So, while an ICE car owner might spend 5 minutes pumping gas, the typical EV owner simply goes home, where the car will charge itself overnight in a garage.

      And when someone DOES go on a road trip, they can plan the route so that they strategically come across a supercharger every 300 miles or so. That requires 20 minutes, so go get lunch while it charges. I do this on long trips, anyway. I need those breaks.

      01

      • #
        LightningCamel

        Well, the car won’t charge itself,it sucks power from somewhere else. I see that we are in our third day of less than 10% CF (see link at #36) and it is overcast so the power will not come from renewables. Then there is the small matter of rebuilding the grid in all our urban areas to carry the power which takes the economics of ev from poor to ridiculous.

        Travel over long distances, which was the subject of my comment, is a day to day occurrence for many people, not something you plan as a bit of an adventure. Your idea of 300miles range is seriously optimistic, 300k is more like it.

        Look at the number of highway fuel pumps, factor in a two hour charge compared to a five minute refuel and you come up with 24 times that number of charging stations required or 12 times for Bill’s 50% dribble. We could refine for utilisation factors and the like but it is still a ridiculously large infrastructure investment for a zero social advantage.

        10

  • #

    “Virtually all EVs get charged at home.”

    Everyone has a parking spot with an electric outlet in Texas? In Sydney we have these things called units. Maybe they call them condos in Texas? Many people do not have their own power where they own or lease a parking space. Many others do not even own a space.

    Or do we rebuild all that infrastructure too? After we rebuild all our power gen? And our power transmission?

    I’m sure there be a nifty come-back to this. Something along the lines of “all you have to do is…”. Since we can’t stop the uptake of wind and solar anyway “for good or ill”, and EVs are coming ready or not, we’d better get used to nifty little come-backs.

    Actually Richard, we are going to do our very best to stop the uptake of these antique white elephant technologies masquerading as innovations. Here in the bush solar is not uncommon. We use it where we can’t get on the grid, for which we have centuries of good Permian black. Solar involves a bunch of imported hardware and lots of to-and-fro, diesel for back-up and for gas deliveries etc, but it’s okay. No mystery or magic to it. Used in its little niches it’s handy tech. Mainstreamed it’s a limp rag.

    It’s true you can increase the number of whirlies and solar panels and run all kinds of things with them. You can also string a lot electric toothbrushes together to run a washing machine. It’s just that you shouldn’t.

    20

    • #
      Bill in Oz

      I had to take a friend down to Adelaide last night. And I had the radio on tuned to the local ABC station 891.
      Phil Clarke had some chap named Toby on as the guest to talk about cars..Going national all over Australia
      What to buy etc..

      And they were both promoting electric vehicles witless the whole time even though they admitted they are so so so expensive.

      Not a word about the chaos that EV’s will unleash on the grid. Not a word about the EV cars being 2 ton mobile batteries…

      But the fact that in China they but 1 million EV’s was boosted as the wave of the future. But no mention that almost all of these Chinese EV’s are two wheel bikes…No mention of the Chinese government’s rules forcing folks to buy EV’s because of the heavy atmospheric pollution in the cities.

      Where does the ABC dredge up these ideological drudges from ? Yet another “Don’t bother with the ABC” realisation… Maybe I’ll listen to just the Country hour from now on…

      NOT MY ABC

      40

      • #
        Kinky Keith

        The horror of this is that young people are being influenced by it.

        They have no escape from indoctrination and seem doomed having to fret their lives away.

        Australia is in a deep hole.

        KK

        20

        • #
          Bill in Oz

          Kieth, no all of Australia.

          Just the dopey publicly funded ABC which is in a deep hole.

          Tomorrow I will go down to the ABC’s Gardener’s Market to check out plants etc & meet some gardening mates.

          But I am extremely pleased that all the money raised by this will go to Charity – NOT to the ABC

          00

          • #
            Kinky Keith

            Bill, Australia is in a deep hole.

            I’ve been aware for a long time that Australia has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world.

            It’s acknowledged that indigenous Australian youth are heavily involved in this but mainstream Australia is a basket case.

            Governments couldn’t care less about restructuring society to make people well.
            All it wants is to wheedle votes out of suckers.

            KK

            00

  • #
    Russ Wood

    As far as exploding transformers go – it doesn’t need elaborate (and expensive) ruinable power being added to your grid. All you need is to keep switching the power off and on again, as can be seen in South Africa’s ‘load shedding’ foul-up. Because of incompetence, theft, and generalised corruption, the single electricity supplier (ESKOM) can’t maintain its aging coal-fired stations (or even its NEW, incomplete coal-fired stations!). All over the country, switching stations are catching fire.

    00

  • #

    I told you so in 2009.

    Grid-powered electric cars are a short-sighted idea for general motorised personal transport. The concept doesn’t scale to fit a significant proportion of the motoring public.

    It’s a simple matter of energy storage and transport. And the viability of such a scheme can be tested with a few simple calculations. Energy is energy.

    10 years of damage later …

    00