This could’ve been us, Australia, if Bill Shorten had won two more seats.
One week ago in California:
Tesla drivers are stranded for hours in a half-a-mile-long line
Shanon Stellini was travelling through Kettleman City on November 30 when she stumbled across a backlog of around 50 of the electric cars waiting to recharge in a half-mile line outside of at a station near Interstate 5. — Luke Kenton Daily Mail.
There are now around 400,000 Teslas on the roads of the U.S. and the company’s commitment to hoarding its cash by any means necessary, including not paying bills and not investing in its Supercharger network, could finally be coming back to bite its owners in pronounced fashion.
The Kettleman City Supercharging station has 40 superchargers, is halfway between LA and San Francisco and people were returning from Thanksgiving.
Looks like Tesla owners need a back-up “baseload” type car in the garage all year to be able to enjoy those special days. There go those fuel savings.
Though they could just fly. There go those fuel savings and those emissions…
…
The national electric car trap: What looks cheap, sounds fashionable but will not just send you broke, it could do-over the whole nation?
Electric cars may lower our fuel bills, but make electricity, jobs, lifestyle, unaffordable. For example, one enthusiastic man in EV saved 6700L of fuel but took three years longer to get where he was going. In other achievements EV’s are already causing some grid failures in Australia (and we hardly have any EV’s). Indeed, if you really want to destroy a grid properly: add a million electric vehicles (see those deadly stats from New Zealand).
Britain can have electric cars or turn Scotland into a wind farm, which will it be then?
There’s also the futile-funny case of the diesel powered electric car charging point in Australia. Laugh til you cry…
Electric cars are perfect for socialists: they boost Big-Gov, but are worse for CO2, pollution, coal use, and the whole dang grid. Save the world with internal combustion engines
The early adopter’s cross to bear.
100
They may well have to bear other crosses as well:
181
of course this freezing process will be included in the life cycle “carbon cost” of EV’s wont it?
in Europe they transport crashed Teslas in specialised steel boxes rather than flatbeds for fear of re-ignition.
152
Seen somewhere recently a burned Out Tesla with a problem that no one wanted to remove it and no one knew where to send the remains of the car , scrap yards said no and dumps said no .
162
They could just keep shooting them into outer space along with the charred remains of their victims.
Aliens upon discovery would think we practised capital punishment using an elaborate microwave oven and disposal system……we would never be invaded.
101
Thanks Yonniestone –I laughed out loud.
30
Optimist! 🙂
30
… ideal practice vehicle for the Fire Service. Be a bit smokey but on the spot incineration could be made.
Good place for a fast-food/drinks emporium to set up. It would seem portable sleeping and dining equipment (tent, stretcher, sleeping bag, blankets, picnic-basket and chilly-bin etc) are necessary recharging equipment. One has to wonder how many new owners of these new vehicles think they just have to plug an extension cord into one of the sockets in their homes … sure! 😛
Oh: and generous daily/weekly Recharging Leave allowances … from employers, of course. 😛
Mind you, for those of us who continue to use our ICE vehicles, similar scenes may apply as the petrol station fades from public places ….
11
Soph… the nice thing about fuel pumps, is that they are already paid for. So until there is a truly cost-effective alternative, the average servo is likely to keep one or two.
01
What, no recyclable parts?
20
They could just pack the dead battery in a container of DRY ICE ! (Solid CO2)
….. Ironic ??
91
😉 !
30
Lithium ion exothermic reaction.
And it requires a substantial amount of cooling water to prepare a burning EV battery pack to the point of extinguishing the fire. Or as explained in above comments, to make the pack fire to appear to be safely extinguished.
81
I believe there’s also an explosion danger with lithium-ion batteries if changed too fast. The Prius didn’t offer L-ion initially because they couldn’t get them to safely charge fast enough. They make too much heat.
51
Glad to see your comment, I’ve missed you for a little while and was a bit worried about your health/safety. Hope you are good in your part of Californistan…
10
Every passing year adds a little wear to everything but life only has two basic options, you keep going and fight where you have to or you give up and become useless or dead. So I get my turn to fight. Thank you for noticing and being concerned.
A couple of days ago I was trying to figure out how long I’ve been haunting Jo’s blog with my half baked sense of humor and I think I started reading in 2008 or 2009 when Heartland Institute sent me The Skeptics Handbook. Her archives begin in 2008 if I remember accurately. So I’ve been around almost as long as joannenova.com.au.
Over the years I’ve read other blogs and commented a little but there’s something about this one and it’s Jo and all of you who make it interesting, challenging to keep up with and let’s face it I don’t think there’s anyone anywhere more welcoming than you Aussies.
20
They should be offered the opportunity to purchase the Mercedes AA electric sedan.
It’s powered by 9,648 AA batteries …
Great car:
-no waiting in huge charging queues …
-ample room in the trunk for a complete set of fresh batteries …
-a battery-dump feature to enable a full fresh charge to be made …
-battery conservation through a top speed of 52 mph.
Mercedes AA Class … Batteries not included.
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m4OHi7NXuI ]
Great car!
I won’t be buying one 😛
top speed of 52 mph … 🙂
00
Christmas holidays in Australia, try to imagine the chaos if we all drove Electric Vehicles, as it stands waiting to refuel with petrol or diesel can be a frustrating wait in line for access to a service station pump.
Maybe EV travellers will need to factor in a week to drive to a two day by conventional vehicle destination in an electric future.
And don’t drive too fast, even legal lhighway limits of 100 kmh and 110 kmh will drain energy from an EV battery pack too quickly for a driver’s comfort zone. And slow down more for hills and if head winds are experienced.
Don’t rapid charge to one hundred per cent battery capacity too often or the battery pack life will be short, most recommend eighty per cent charges, so add some travel days for that.
Last year near Goulburn NSW a Tesla S was following my 4WD diesel after I left Goulburn and drove onto the highway, my vehicle was on cruise control doing exactly the speed limit of 110 kmh (actual speed not speedometer reading which in my vehicle is 7 kmh too high). After maybe ten minutes of driving the Tesla S EV pulled out to overtake my vehicle as we approached a long hill and a large truck in the left lane in front of my vehicle. When the Tesla pulled alongside my vehicle it slowed forcing me to slow behind the truck. Over the hill the Tesla completed overtaking and I overtook it again. It followed closely behind again for probably five minutes and then slowed quickly and disappeared from my rear view mirror.
Obviously the energy remaining in the Tesla battery pack was dropping too quickly for the driver’s comfort.
My present diesel 4WD can comfortably drive 850 Km before refuelling, my previous AWD diesel could exceed 1,000 Km per tank of fuel.
251
well I guess if we all drove EVs the charger system would be scaled up accordingly.
vast drive in theatre style complexes would spring up beside major highways, with a central cluster of artery blocking fast food would be provided across a vast field of 60C bitumen. As providing megawatts of power at remote highway locations isnt a problem , I can so no problems with this scenario. Sounds like eco Nirvana to me.
70
“Eco Nirvana” recharged 88 per cent from coal and gas fired power stations, diesel and gas back up generators or firming for wind and solar farms?”
Are you aware that a group of engineers in GB advised their government that, theoretical exercise to highlight the problems and lack of cost effectiveness, that to charge a replacement fleet of EV there would require all of Scotland to be covered with wind turbines?
Based on the Capital Hill Wind Farm in the NSW Southern Highlands, 67 Wind Turbines with total nameplate capacity of 140 MW, average capacity factor 98 MW, to replace the ageing Liddell Power Station, coal fired, which has a nameplate capacity x 4 generator units of 2,000 MW, average capacity factor better than 1,800 MW, based on Capital Hill Wind Farm covering 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares), would require over 18 Capital Hill Wind Farms.
Suitable sites are few and far between, let alone 270,000 acres of land.
And then add the feeder transmission lines from farms to main electricity grid, and firming back up land and costs.
There will never be a transition to renewable energy wind, solar and firming, even including batteries.
Germany have abandoned their wind revolution and are fast tracking a gas pipeline to Russia for power station fuel.
160
Yep,I can see it now, for thousands of American families charging the EV will be just another ‘day out’ at the roadside eatery. What fun, convinced that their electric car is the best thing since the invention the Big Mac !
GeoffW
121
Your hapless competitor’s Tesla might have a big advantage over you from a standing start though. An electric motor can deliver high torque at zero RPM, something no internal combustion engine can do. We have friends who have a Chevy Volt and I’ve had opportunity to ride in it and it takes off from a dead stop like a jackrabbit.
But the most fun I’ve ever had was with my Mazda rotary engine, they were invincible in a hill climb. My drive home from work had a spot where the road went around a curve and then straight up a long steep grade. I would drop that Mazda down into second gear as I rounded the curve and if no one was coming down I would pull out and put the gas pedal to the floor. I could pass 2 or 3 cars going up that grade and once 4 cars. Drivers would give me the strangest looks as I went by. That’s how you leave them to disappear in the rear view mirror.
10
So much virtue to signal and so little time. Oh wait! I’ve got 8 hours in this queue to kill.
170
You can fix that with a very loud music machine and poor taste music … maybe 🙂
00
None of this really matters much in the long run, we will not have private cars if governments have their way.
They are finally admitting, they are coming for your cars. I have not just been ranting, I have seen it coming.
People will have to get out of their cars if the UK is to meet its climate change targets, MPs say.
The Science and Technology Select Committee says technology alone cannot solve the problem of greenhouse gas emissions from transport.
It says the government cannot achieve sufficient emissions cuts by swapping existing vehicles for cleaner versions. In its report, the committee said: “In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.”
Of course this has nothing to do with climate, or CO2, it is simply to put us peasants back where we belong, servitude.
00
The average Joe Blow cant afford to install solar panels – despite all the subsidies.
The average Joe Blow can not afford an EV – despite all the subsidies.
It will not be too much longer before the rich Joe Blow will no longer be able to afford the subsidies.
100
I didnt realise we had EV subsidies in OZ, I might look into it. Most of our trips are less than 200k round trip. If my fellow tax payers will fund it I might just get an electric shopping trolley to replace my LPG shopping trolley.
41
So far $300 million gifted to leasing companies to encourage leasing of EV by large fleet operators, $100 million handed to Macquarie Bank Leasing.
The grants were made when PM Turnbull was in the chair.
111
Just think! Three of those tractors hooked up at home and there goes the power for the entire neighbourhood. Happening in Toorak already. Typical leftie enterprise, no thought at all as to consequences. No idea how big the transformers and power infrastructure required for that one servo with at least 15 fast charge stations.
130
The price you pay for virtue signaling!
80
I believe the more cars on these stations, at once, the slower the charging rate is. Happy motoring EV drivers !
100
OK it would appear to be 75kW in half an hour…so…2.25MWhrs for that one site.
75×15= 1125kW in half hr x2= 2250kWhrs…or…1800 homes for a day. Gotta love virtue signalling lemings.
150
or about double of you want to avoid queues
50
Thats 1800 homes for a day for each hr all those chargers are running for.
60
we dont need no steeeeenking homes! virtuous eco warriors nedd their cars charged dammit!
90
Eco-warriors? Or delusional yuppie-retreads?
70
I think its worse…..yuppies at least were blatant money hungry fashistas….eco warriors are kind of pathetic wimpy lefties with beards….
80
EVs…the worlds most pointless vehicle.
I did actually have a Tesla owner comment that if he had a petrol gennie in the boot, he could recharge if the battery went low…..er so that would make your car a hybrid then, not an EV….
*sigh*
80
A petrol powered generator to fit into the boot of an EV would take a very long time to even recharge 80 per cent, as compared to a vehicle petrol engine Hybrid generator.
I read a blog comment from one of those leftist zealots who claimed that an EV the blogger might purchase would be recharged overnight at home with solar panels.
Another recently claimed that coal fired power stations will not operate in very cold weather conditions.
Is it any wonder at all that such people believe in Greta?
190
You should’ve reminded him you can still pump petrol manually without electricity faster than any generator would recharge the car.
Using a manual dynamo generator to recharge a Tesla would be an interesting test.
20
I can see an opportunity for the manufacture and supply of Portable Recharging Equipment Think of a push bike with no wheels but a generator … ideal for families!
Shed feet from those waistlines and tons from the bodies!
… the holiday lasts until the EV is charged!
10
Pointless indeed. EVs are still burning fossil fuels for the most part. Those electrons still come from a power plant somewhere. Unless it’s hydro or nuclear power the largest % comes from hydrocarbon fuels. It was discovered long ago that it was better to burn high density hydro carbon fuels in the vehicle via an internal combustion engine.
00
Ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha
Ha ha ha ha ha!
100
A one time queue vs weekly queues in WA
https://thewest.com.au/lifestyle/motoring/is-manic-monday-a-fuels-errand-ng-b881122780z
318
Your point being?
90
Well, people are forced to line up in all sorts of places.
I once had to wait 7 minutes in a supermarket queue.
It shouldn’t take that long to charge a battery?
KK
110
I occasionally have to wait up to 10 minutes for coffee at my favourite place.
Good thing its not a Tesla queue, hey. 😉
90
Ahh, Peter, but you forget to mention this strange anachronism in Perth Petrol prices (which would mystify anyone from outside the state and most of us inside as well). Here Mondays — for some unknowable reason — are the cheapest day to buy petrol. On Tuesday the price goes up from $1.30 to $1.45. The government run Fuelwatch site and rules say that stations must pick prices the day before and stick with them all day. So the stations that have the cheapest fuel on a Monday will have long queues. Customers who manage to visit the second or third station on the list will wait, not at all. Stations on the top of the cheap list sometimes run out of fuel. But anyone can buy petrol Tuesday to Friday anywhere without waiting…
Next, someone will explain why in a free market, no single petrol outlet offers prices as cheap as a monday on any other day of the week? (A few years ago the cheap day was Tues or Weds.)
230
You folks are quite odd with respect to petrol, and maybe other things.
We have company branded stations, generic stations, travel plaza multi-purpose places, and plazas run by major retailers of groceries and goods. In the latter case, a retailer will provide a discount at their station connected to the amount of your charge at the store check-out. Say you buy $50 of food, then you get 10 cents off each unit of fuel (gallons in our case).
A large travel plaza will cater to big trucks, and the place will have showers, over-night parking, and sell meals, carry-out food, and other goods. You can buy a single banana or a full meal. There may be 40 units serving autos, and another 40 serving diesel to big trucks.
The prices of the fuel will vary from place to place and day by day.
One web site (called Gas Buddy) allows a person to sort by city to find the lowest price – reported by drivers as they make purchases.
My car, a Subaru Crosstrek, has a 15 gallon (56 L) tank. Mostly I can pull into a station, fill up, and be back on the road in about 7 minutes.
I can go 450 miles (725 km) on that tank of fuel.
My bladder won’t last that long.
100
Must be all the alcohol in your fuels, Jo. Got to get rid of last week’s gas fast because it’s going off!
Fresh gas comes in Monday night.
😛
10
The queues at the cheapest in the area are related to an inability to do arithmetic.
Often, the spread in prices to the 5 or 6 next-expensive in an area is less than a cent per litre. So for most, the extra charge for no queue is less than a dollar if they fill the whole tank. Is money really that tight?
Curiously, I’ve seen one queue to top up their fuel tank at the cheapest price … putting in only about 10 litres before the tank was filled.
Could’ve been an EV driver in a borrowed “burner”. 😉
P.S. Sorry to have missed the meetup. I was at home in the unpleasant company of coughs and a throbbing headache. [I think that I need to find a competent GP who does more than treat symptoms.]
30
You should read before you post and make a fool of yourself, again, PF
Wait time on the cheap petrol queue is 15 minutes.
What is the wait time on the Tesla queue?
Still no evidence of warming by atmospheric CO2, I notice. 😉
You totally avoided showing us which of your links had that evidence.
Its as though you knew that none of them did. 😉
140
Peter Fitzroy,
The Nobel Prize, if there were to be one should go to the geniuses who think there is a problem with burning the fuels we already have and could be provide at a lower price if it was not for the heavy hand of government mucking up what was once a free market in a necessary commodity.
It would be known as the Nobel Stupidity Prize. And that’s not what I would really like to call it but I’m afraid Jo wouldn’t tolerate the language.
30
Nine out of every ten EVs sold are still on the roads.
The others made it home.
340
The queue is not as bad as it seems.
I counted 13 cars charging at superchargers and 15 cars waiting in the line. So maybe 15minutes wait.
There were some unused charging points which are probably the slow ones. Quicker to wait for a supercharger to become available.
13
I will stick to fossil liquid fuel …
https://pod-point.com/guides/vehicles/tesla/2019/model-3
40
That video is not the 50 car que being referred to in the article.
The Video is the charging station at St Louis Obispo, but the article is refering to a bigger charging station at Kettleman, a town 100km away on i5
Either way, both those charge points are located in the most “Tesla intense” area in the world …betweem LA and San Francisco..exactly where they would need to recharge between the to major CA cities.
Tesla really should (must ?) be able to manage and support that area if nowhere else.
10
Justification for a Small-Modular-Reactor nuclear power plant, surely. 😉
50
Perhaps the EV sellers could have a buy one get one free sale. That way the owners could be using one while the other is at home all day being charged from the free electricity produced by the solar panels.
60
Maybe have a flat towing link and swap the tow car EV when energy is low?
Would 50 per cent of range towing for both vehicles and a double recharge time work, plus double the cost of EV transport plus tow link?
Maybe just a trailer mounted generator instead?
Or a Hybrid EV.
Maybe just keep the ICEV.
20
Maybe just keep your gas guzzler and be happy with short refuel times and enjoy the longer range.
00
Road rage will soon be replaced by charging station rage.
90
I can see the woke bloke mincing towards the other shouting “how dare you”.
100
Don’t you love how the leccy-luvvies argue that the rest of us should pay for charging stations for them to use?
Who the hell do they think paid for the Service Stations that we use? Government?
Let them pay for their own infrastructure.
170
I know nothing about this topic, but I did find it odd how the following talks about batteries in terms of gigawatt capacity. possible it’s just me:
5 Dec: Reuters: GM,LG Chem to build $2.3 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Ohio
by Paul Lienert; Additional reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Heekyong Yang in Seoul, David Shepardson in Washington and Ben Klayman in Detroit, Ernest Scheyder in Houston
The plant, to be built near GM’s closed assembly plant in Lordstown in northeast Ohio, will employ more than 1,100 people, the companies said.
Construction is to begin in mid-2020 and the plant will have an annual capacity of more than 30 gigawatt hours with the flexibility to expand…
At a media briefing, GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said the 50-50 joint venture with LG Chem is aimed at “dramatically enhancing electric vehicle affordability and profitability…
“General Motors believes in the science of global warming and believes in an all-electric future,” she said…
The Ohio battery cell plant will boost LG Chem’s global battery capacity to 100 gigawatt-hours by the end of 2020, LG Chem CEO Hak-Cheol Shin said at the briefing. Each company will invest about US$916 million, with the rest coming from debt capital raised by joint venture, a GM spokeswoman said…
Electric vehicle industry suppliers were cheered by the news, especially GM’s talk of an EV truck as pickups and SUVs are the heart of the U.S. market…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-lg-chem-jv-exclusive/gm-lg-chem-to-build-2-3-billion-electric-vehicle-battery-plant-in-ohio-idUSKBN1Y90C6?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
10
Ha ! NSW/Sydney prices also cycle up and down , but more randomly of late.
Currently you can choose between $128 up to $1.74 per litre of E10 ! From servo stations in the same street ! ..
Price watch apps are a waste of time as prices vary so much, so fast.
00
How far away will Peak Lithium be?
40
Cobalt.
Congo’s reserves are being used up very quickly. 90,000MT produced each year out of 3.4 million MT reserves.
Now, consider what would happen if all the world’s news cars (75 million every year) were EV, not just a million. Congo’s known reserves, assuming that the main product will be EV batteries; would be exhausted in much less than a year; if they could dig it up quickly enough.
[Of course Cobalt is used in other applications and the costs to those applications would increase substantially.]
Just one of the parameters to consider when considering BEV feasibility scaling to “whole population” for general purpose motor vehicles.
20
BBC’s “Science in Action” had a segment on the following; it ended with the scientist & BBC suggesting it was nothing to worry about:
4 Dec: Nature Asia: Environment: Levels of lithium in waterways of Seoul assessed
Nature Communications
Lithium from electronics and batteries may be entering rivers and contaminating tap water in Seoul, South Korea, suggests a paper in Nature Communications. The study suggests that lithium concentrations in waterways are correlated with population density, and that waste-water treatment plants appear to be ineffective at removing this element…
Jong-Sik Ryu and colleagues sampled water along the Han River basin, which is the main source of tap water for Seoul, the largest city in South Korea. The authors found that compared to other rivers worldwide, the concentration of lithium in the upper Han River is lower. However, as the river passed through the city and the population density increased, lithium concentrations were found to be up to 600% higher than those upstream. The authors suggest that anthropogenic activities are responsible for this change, and observed a similar trend in lithium concentrations in tap water samples as population increased. In an analysis of the isotopic composition, they found that the lithium entering the Han River appears to come from lithium-ion batteries, therapeutic drugs and food waste…
The authors argue that their study reveals a need for better monitoring, identification of risk zones, and overall minimization of lithium-related impacts on ecosystems and human health.
LINK NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
http://www.natureasia.com/en/research/highlight/13160
20
There are 14 unused Tesla charging stations at one location in a suburb of Bendigo – I have seen two cars being charged there in the last 18 months. We can reassure the good citizens in California, that in the true spirit of international cooperation, that they can come and take up our unused facility whenever they need to. And they can go the Big Mac located less than 100 metres from the charging station. All bases covered for citizens of the land of the free.
60
I often drive past a Tesla recharge station north of Newcastle NSW (6 chargers) and west of Port Macquarie (6 chargers) and rarely see an EV parked at them.
10
Paul Homewood has pointed out that Teslas make up just 0.1% of US cars and this is what happens on a busy day. and he mentions that once they are all plugged in the power supply drops due to the load and increases the charge time even further. The UK morons are pleased to say that there are more charging points in the UK than petrol stations. Of course a question along the lines of a comparison of the throughput per hour would be interesting and one our moron media would never dream of asking the virtue signallers.
70
A flock of unintended consequences are landing to harass people who didn’t think more than a millimeter in front of their noses. Such circumstances are totally predicable given a few minutes of rational thought. The range of any electric only vehicle is limited by the charge on its batteries and cannot be recharged in a few minutes like petroleum powered vehicles.
Rational thought seems to be in very limited supply these days especially when it comes to virtue signaling. The virtue points you earn that way do not recharge your battery powered car, warm your home, or put food on the table. In fact, they are worth less than that penny you walked past and didn’t bother pick up.
81
Just seen another totally different video from California of another massive line up of Teslas lining up for recharging , this one was at night and it was bucketing down rain .
Unfortunately when I tried to get a link Facebook made it disappear .
30
See my comment 14:2
The night time/ rain video is the Kettleman charge station referred to in the header.
The video in the header ( The Madonna inn) Is a different location ..San Louis Obispo.
00
As someone who’s actually been here (I’m American, i found this page randomly suggested by Google news) this was during Thanksgiving holidays so the lines were extra long. The other days out of the year, the Kettleman City charger is not that crowded.
00
The busiest supercharger in the highest concentrated Tesla area in the world was busy on the busiest travel day of the year? Stop the presses. Can’t believe people are buying the “teslas explode” brainwashing, too. I’ll never go back to gas! When the backwards commenters realize all their gas stations have closed because the world has gone electric, will this site post the article about the long queue at the few gas stations left? Comments are dripping with jealousy at Tesla owners, and you should be jealous.
311
Thanks for the laugh Kevin. I’ll stick to our present old cars, thank you all the same. 🙂
31
PS: Some of us aren’t made of money.
20
And even I was I would not spend it on a Tesla. It will be a long time before charging stations are as ubiquitous as gas stations. Some of us liked to spend a winter holiday in Death Valley, not a place to go without the ability to refill the tank when there.
10
That could be a problem then Kevin. When there is no more diesel then agriculture and deliver of produce to the overcrowded, polluted cities will cease. The thought of tractors, headers or semi trailers being run on batteries is just a tad absurd. Amazing how people can;t get their minds past their little recreational vehicle.
71
Ok, my smug friend…. Let me know when we have a battery that is as cheap, long-lasting, as energy-dense and as quickly filled as a diesel tank.
We’ve only been trying to invent one for 220 years.
Let me know when I can drive my electric vehicle for 25 years, do 600km while carrying a tonne of cargo, refuel/recharge in the time it takes for a pitstop and a takeaway coffee…. And be good for another 600.
Let me know when I can pick up enough power to run a large ag machine for several days, carry it to a remote area well away from the grid, and fuel that machine while the operator is stretching his legs.
50
So Kevin, with EVs less than 0.1% of vehicles currently on the roads, ,.
…how many charer stations will be required if that figure ever gets to even 50% ?
20
The irony for me is there is an EV charging station about 1 mile from my home. I have never seen an EV charging there. Ever. I have seen diesel pickup trucks parked there on occasion because of a lack of parking spaces for conventional vehicles. Nobody cared.
20
A big shopping center near me had 2 parking spaces with chargers. The cables laid on the ground and began to be buried under wind blown dirt and leaves and only last year did I see 2 cars using those chargers.
30
They are lining up for free electricity from tesla. Every single car owner can charge at home, work or at any of the thousands of charge points across the state. Find me a gas car manufacturer that includes free gas and I’ll show you a line 100miles long!!
20
Faraday, which was supposed to be a solution to the grid instability of heavy intermittent loads, appears to have gone black itself. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/what-went-wrong-at-faraday-grid
00
Every major vehicle manufacturer is shifting to EV production. As the move to EVs gathers pace, some fuel stations will close, others will install EV chargers. Battery energy density, charging times will quickly improve. The price of EVs will continue to fall as they become more common, similarly to how PCs and cell phones are now affordable and ubiquitous.
ICE vehicles are already obsolete, with the exception of some side use cases. Most of the posters here seem unable to accept this fact due to ignorance, misinformation, and political ideology that clouds their reason, and deems EVs to be an existential threat. In short, cognitive dissonance writ large.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a city without ICE vehicles emitting carbon monoxide and not having to pay for fossil fuel. I think most rational people would agree it would be a good goal to aspire to.
03
Imagine living in a city where electricity costs so much manufacturing closes down, there are not many jobs, little disposable income, the economy starts to grind to a halt. They lower interest rates as far as possible then start talking of the absurdly nonsensical idea of negative interests. Well, don’t imagine…
50
Jo, Switzerland used/uses negative interest rates to dampen demand for the Swiss Franc. The first I heard about it was in the late 70’s or early 80’s to reduce the foreign money pouring in and at that time it only applied to accounts held by non residents. The article from Reuters is current, but I don’t know if the current interest rate of -0.75% only applies to non residents. I assume so but don’t know for sure.
https://www.reuters.com/article/swiss-snb-maechler/swiss-national-banks-maechler-says-negative-interest-rates-vital-idUSZ8N27U02Y
PS Money was/is still safer in a Swiss Bank than under a mattress even with negative interest rates.
10
I wonder what interest rate was applicable in the below linked to article. But it sure had good returns although a little convoluted. A real fire sale with CO2 to boot.
https://www.afr.com/politics/mysterious-fortune-20140131-iy5nh
00
Imagine being the poor doofus who bought a current tech EV, before these promised EV chargers, before increased battery energy density, before improved charging times.
So thanks for the heads-up. I won’t be buying a Tesla Betacord. Or maybe they should call it the Tesla CD-ROM (with free Encarta)?
30
The incredible deluge of ignorance, obsfucation and outright delusion displayed in so many of these posts – and the original post – is terrifying. Burn Australia, Burn…
04
Well, that does it. you’ve convinced me!
60
If you were open to objective facts, e.g.
1) humans extracting and burning fossil fuels are responsible for dangerous increases in GHG’s and resultant accelerated climate change
2) that climate change represents an existential risk for our civilization
3) PV panels are now the lowest cost electrical energy source in the world
4) solar radiation can supply all of the electrical energy Australia will ever need from less land than coal mines now occupy
5) massive electrical storage is the only technical barrier to massive electrification – but is quickly becoming price competitive with fossil fuels and offers the long-term advantage of a decentralized mesh grid (and all those EV’s can also be storage and power sources)
..then perhaps you could be convinced.
of course you won’t be, because you aren’t actually an intellectually honest person anyway. you know the science, and as an educated scientist you know it is overwhelming. instead, you sell you soul for celebrity, and are happy to discard truth while spewing misinformation. celebrity is all that keeps you from disappearing as the irrelevant fraud you are.
you will continue to obsfucate and make ‘the perfect the enemy of the good’, and your ultimate legacy will be to be forever known as the idiot who denied the obvious.
that’s 3 minutes of my life i’ll never get back
00