Electronics > Power/Renewable Energy/EV's

Electric vehicle uptake in Australia held back by price, infrastructure

(1/6) > >>

station240:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/electric-vehicle-uptake-in-australia-held-back-by-price-infrastructure-20160610-gpgkn6.html


--- Quote ---The Sundaraj family car was one of 942 fully electric vehicles sold in Australia last year, a fraction of the 1.1 million-plus cars bought by Australians in the same period.

Australia's slow uptake of electric vehicles has been linked to consumer preferences, the low price of oil and a lack of infrastructure. But for the average family, the biggest barrier has surely been price.
--- End quote ---

I've kind of suspected the uptake was bad in Australia, but not that bad.   |O
Problem is there it no tax breaks for buying them, and due to their cost, many are in the "luxury car tax" bracket.

The Super Charger route mentioned in the article is between Sydney and Melbourne. Australia's other capital cities have basically nothing, Adelaide for example has one CHAdeMO fast charger, but only because it's outside Mitsubishi's head office, which used to be an entire car plant.

Someone:
The dollar figures in that article make no sense, the family went from spending $2500 a year on petrol (for an unspecified distance of travel, probably around 20,000km in an inefficient vehicle) and now plan to spend $245 a year and drive 15,000km. Knowing the Tesla uses at least 15kWh/100km they need to obtain at least 2250kWh @ the current NSW rate of "normal" electricity 22c/kWh is $495, so electricity is either coming from the free supercharger or they're using solar or off peak power (accessing which increases the cost of non-off-peak power). And then this travesty of reporting:

--- Quote from: Lucy Cormack for The Age ---She also has an electric car for personal use. "It costs $8 to $10 to charge the car from empty to full," Ms Peterson said. "We spend about $4.20 a week on green power sourced from wind and solar. This is charged off-peak and we drive the equivalent of 40 kilometres a day."
--- End quote ---
Three unconnected measurements, they again add up if its off-peak power at 10c to fill a Tesla 75kWh pack but then you're paying higher rates for overall electricity use.

Where the average family is using 16kWh/day and these example vehicle uses would be adding an additional 6kWh/day, using 100% green power you can crunch the numbers:
Tariff16kWh household use6kWh off-peak car chargingTotalflat$4$1.5$5.5/daytime of use$4.8$0.6$5.4/daySo if you use off peak power for the car you're taking savings from the other electricity use, the total cost is cheaper but the delta cost of adding a car to the electricity bill remains around the same for these low use examples. Time of use only makes sense for people who can put huge amounts of energy use in the off peak period.

Someone:
Looks like the government caught up and now provides the Australian consumption figures:
https://www.greenvehicleguide.gov.au/Vehicle/ViewMatchingVariants?vehicleDisplayId=27550
Tesla coming in with 18.5kWh/100km to 19.8kWh/100km and decidedly average CO2 emissions (check where your "green" power is sourced from before you claim its zero CO2 emission).

EEVblog:
When my old bomb died last year I desperately wanted an electric car (as did SWMBO).
We test drove several, but the only one that was affordable was a (fairly impractical) 2nd hand Mitsubishi iMiev at about $15k
Next closest was a Nissan LEAF at $35k or a 2nd hand Holden Volt at about the same.
We eventually resigned ourselves to the fact it wasn't possible and got a used Toyoto Corolla.

EEVblog:

--- Quote from: station240 on June 12, 2016, 10:43:54 am ---I've kind of suspected the uptake was bad in Australia, but not that bad.   |O
Problem is there it no tax breaks for buying them, and due to their cost, many are in the "luxury car tax" bracket.

--- End quote ---

People ask me why I don't get a Telsa. The reason is it costs AU$125k

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page