Ex-Holden workers ready to build electric cars at a 'moment's notice'

[Mercury Bullet]

Originally Posted by commodorenutt

I posted the reference link in another thread about EVs, because the clown with the Tesla wanting a "greenhouse gas tax" on fossil-fuel burning cars was from WA. It's a govt, climate, or energy website that had data & graphs.

Regardless of if they are coal or gas, they are still producing carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, and they made up 93% of the power generated on the data shown.

If they want to claim gas fired power stations as clean, then it could be argued that LPG cars are clean compared to petrol too.......

Gas doesn't produce anywhere near the amount of carbon as coal.
WAs power is actually considered quite clean, I assure you it's nothing like 93%.

Anyway that being said I agree with you.

[roKWiz]

Just curious, EV's actual range as they keep touting or are they like petrol cars and depend on how you drive them.

[hackney]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Just curious, EV's actual range as they keep touting or are they like petrol cars and depend on how you drive them.

Nissan’s new Leaf(yet to arrive here) has a range (I think) of about 400ks.Cheers

[Fordblue1000]

You are right rockwiz. I can get 100 klms from a full charge if driven properly. But drive foot to the floor i can only get 80 odd. Ac and heater also uses up to 20% of capacity. So realistically you are getting a lower range. Hills and speed are the range killers also.

Sent from my SM-G928I using Tapatalk

[HO 3]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Just curious, EV's actual range as they keep touting or are they like petrol cars and depend on how you drive them.

No doubt one of the google experts will chime with a more accurate answer........ my take on it would be an average car with a full tank of fuel would have twice the driving range of a fully charged EV...........and of course the elephant in the room, the weight of the battery pack vs the weight of a tank full of fuel.

Cheers Mick

[prydey]

From cradle to the grave they aren't really a big step forward in reducing emissions. Focusing on tailpipe emissions is just burying your head in the sand.

As for their usefulness. They are solely an inner city commuter vehicle at this stage.

I think hybrid technology will have greater success, similar to F1 systems.

[Maka]

I would rather see those ex Holden workers here in Oz being employed (even building ev's lol) than being poached to go overseas.

cheers, Maka

[hackney]

Originally Posted by HO 3

No doubt one of the google experts will chime with a more accurate answer........ my take on it would be an average car with a full tank of fuel would have twice the driving range of a fully charged EV...........and of course the elephant in the room, the weight of the battery pack vs the weight of a tank full of fuel.

Cheers Mick

Nissan’s “Quote” on their range of the EV.( not mine!)Cheers

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by Trump

Batteries will need to improve several orders of magnitude (both in capacity and environmental impact) before electric motors become viable and slot-in replacements for internal combustion power units.

It WILL happen, we (the human race) always work these things out, but it may take a bit longer.

In the meantime, get on the Graphite, Cobalt, Lithium and Nickel stocks bandwagon. Good money being made right now

[commodorenutt]

I got a little bit involved (work reasons) with a project to electrify a diesel railmotor set for the new Byron Bay "solar train": http://byronbaytrain.com.au/sustainability/

Manufacturing emissions aside, this is one of the ONLY true non-polluting EV's (as far as ongoing running) in Australia at present (and those who say they exclusively charge an EV off their home solar - that's still drawing from the grid, unless you're one of very few with your own off-grid system).

What was very interesting about this, is the track is almost level, with imperceptable inclines. This is exactly where electric motors perform well. There was lots of data pored over to select the right combination of components. I have seen some of the data at for the speed/weight/grade comparisons, and just 3-5% grade drops the speed dramatically, for the same current draw. If you want to "give it more juice" to maintain speed, the current draw skyrockets, and the range is reduced significantly.

The data that is already out there, from testing systems like this, is what makes me extremely skeptical about Tesla's truck. I can't see it doing to well on the Hume going south from Sydney, or up the Northern Beaches. But they'll ignore those shortcomings & cover it up with more hype....

The same is also true, on a smaller scale, for car EVs. On flat terrain, they're great, but range becomes a big issue if you take into account all the hills (unless you're going back down them, and regenerating some of that used energy back intot he batteries)

[danzvtil]

Holden have sold the site and are dismantling it, there is no car factory there now. What goes in next is none of their business.

[Tonz]

Originally Posted by Maka

I would rather see those ex Holden workers here in Oz being employed (even building ev's lol) than being poached to go overseas.

cheers, Maka

wont happen, they all get their super, sick days, holiday leave and child care benifits. Wont find those in a third world country.

[Maka]

Originally Posted by Tonz

wont happen, they all get their super, sick days, holiday leave and child care benifits. Wont find those in a third world country.

Theres some already working at Tesla, the 1st world still make cars too iirc lol.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-1...76?pfmredir=sm

cheers, Maka

[zipping]

Total EV sales since 2010, *including estimates for Tesla *because it declines to release figures, suggest that in a total passenger fleet of 14 million there are 8000 EVs on Australian roads, equivalent to one in every 1750 cars. Vive la revolution!

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...42dd2c9dd54386

So Australia went unplugged but it has not been alone. From the US to China, governments *declared EV targets wildly out of synch with reality: 500,000 in China by 2012, one million in the US by 2015. If all the predictions had been met, the global EV fleet would run into the tens of millions by now.

The actual total is slightly north of three million, fuelled by phenomenal growth last year that saw EVs pass the magic million mark with about 1.2 million sales. In a report to clients last week, Macquarie Research dubbed 2017 “the year electric cars came of age” with demand up 51 per cent on 2016 — faster than it predicted (see graphic). “It is only a slight exaggeration to say 2017 was the year electric vehicles ... became mainstream,” it says.

The numbers include both pure battery-powered cars and plug-in hybrids, which combine an electric driveline with an internal combustion engine that takes over when lithium ions run low.

Both types of EV, which go by the cumbersome abbreviations BEV and PHEV, are front and centre of an unprecedented global development effort that will see dozens reach showrooms over the next five years. Without exception, carmakers are committing billions to bring entire EV ranges to market that sit alongside their existing oil-dependent cars.

If the EV revolution has been hamstrung by lack of supply, we will very soon know for sure. *Arrivals in Australia this year *include Jaguar’s I-Pace SUV, the Hyundai Ioniq with a choice of *alternative drivelines and the first diesel plug-in hybrid in Audi’s Q7 E-tron.

With commitment by the *Renault-Nissan group, one of the first to embrace EVs, the aforementioned Leaf has gone on to *become the global best-seller with more than 300,000 delivered. An improved second-generation — short-listed for World Car of the Year, no less — arrives in Australia towards the end of the year. *Renault is also having another go at light commercial EVs following a small trial of its Kangoo with Australia Post in 2014. Kangoo is Europe’s favourite commercial EV, with a third of the market, and the new model has an improved real-world range of 200km.

Next year will bring debutants from Mercedes in the EQ, Porsche with Mission E, Aston Martin with Rapide E and the Tesla Model 3, to name a few.

A much-anticipated leap in battery technology has failed to arrive — and Better Place went bust — but EVs have edged forward with automotive-specific motors and more sophisticated battery control. “Individual cells can be monitored,” says Society of Automotive Engineers member and Swinburne University spec*ialist Kathy Petkoff. “If a battery in the centre of the cell block is failing then it can be removed to ensure the load isn’t being passed on to make the other batteries fail.”

The next step may be solid-state lithium ion that promises safer, more powerful units that *recharge faster. British electrical goods company Dyson, which has joined the EV stampede, says its car due in 2020 will use them.

Car companies have also *realised that range and price are real limitations to customer accept*ance. There’s no point telling a buyer that all they need to do is plug in overnight for a measly commuting range and then expect them to pay a premium. Everyone already has a better solution sitting in front of their house.

BMW, which has the most *extensive range of electrified vehicles here after a spate of recent plug-in arrivals (see graphic), has decided to take a hit on its margins by pricing plug-in variants the same as its internal combustion engine equivalents.

“We don’t want people to pay a surcharge to be green any more,” says BMW product chief Brendan Michel. “People are now starting to see the benefits of switching to a plug-in hybrid over the life-cycle of a car — the savings are quite large.” It’s early days but for the 530 large sedan launched mid-2017 about 10 per cent of buyers choose the 530e while 90 per cent stuck with the petrol 530i.

Range anxiety, the very real fear that you may be left stranded in a flat EV, is being addressed with a $10 million investment by the NRMA to roll out 40 fast-chargers in NSW and the ACT, doubling the existing facilities (see graphic). Tesla added to its proprietary fast-charging network last year and claims to cover 80 per cent of Australia’s population with just 22 locations.

Meanwhile, induction systems, which involve simply parking a car over a plate, offer the hope of more convenient *recharging.

Britain-based independent EV consultant Roger Atkins pinpoints three pivotal moments. The first is Dieselgate, which two years ago exposed Volkswagen as an emissions cheat and has turned Europe, the globe’s main diesel market, against the fuel. The second is Tesla’s Model 3, a mainstream EV that has attracted 450,000 deposits from people who have barely seen, let alone test-driven, the car.

And the third is China, which has mandated EV quotas to address air quality in its cities and force technical progress.

From the numbers it’s clear that so far this EV revolution is nearly all about China. Including commercial vehicles, it bought *almost 780,000 EVs last year, *accounting for the bulk of the global total. Most were city runabouts with limited range and unfamiliar names, such as the Zhidou D1. Tax subsidies help buyers get over the price premium while supply is assured by a carbon credit program, which starts next year and requires EVs to be 4 per cent of a carmaker’s annual production. China is targeting two million EVs by 2020, when subsidies are due to end.

Incentives are common to buoyant EV markets but in other respects the contrast is stark. The next biggest EV buyer is the US, where the expensive Tesla Model S large sedan is the best-seller and, along with the Model X large SUV, accounts for a quarter of all EV purchases. It’s still early days for more affordable options such as the Chevrolet Bolt and — thanks to production problems — the Tesla Model 3. Again, tax breaks help drive demand but have volume limits that Tesla, in particular, will soon breech.

Europe, where cars from *Renault-Nissan top the charts, has a mosaic of different subsidies that distort buying patterns to the extent that the Tesla Model S is often Norway’s favourite car. Again it’s an open question what will happen when incentives are removed.

Still, they have supporters here. For Electric Vehicle Council chief Behyad Jafari, tax exemptions and a co-ordinated national *approach are essential or Australia will miss out.

“You want to have some level of investment already in place so you’re ready to receive the benefits,” says Jafari.

However, Atkins says China is forcing the market and may be storing up trouble for itself.

“You’re pushing the market rather than waiting for the market to pull. What we’ve seen around the world over the past 10 years — despite all the noise — is very little pull. It will create lots of challenges and problems.”

One will be recharging. With 127,000 stations, China has easily the most installed infrastructure and its own unique system called GB/T. BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen have combined to push the Combined Charging System and are rolling out 400 super-fast chargers across Europe to supplement 7000 stations worldwide. Japanese makers prefer the CHAdeMO system, with 17,000 facilities across Japan and Europe, and Tesla has its own system with 8500 locations worldwide.

It’s unclear which system will prevail or whether some will converge. Tesla’s system is exclusive to its clients and early buyers *remain eligible for free refills. The CCS standard allows for either AC or DC charging, with the latter much quicker. The fastest DC *stations can refill in 10 minutes or so, making them comparable with a petrol refill. CHAdeMO units have the advantage of allowing cars to sell power back to the grid — a key factor in longer-term EV strategies.

Adaptors or second charge ports can get around the incompatibility issue but it will be a long time before an EV driver can fill up anywhere.

If that’s a problem anywhere, it’s Australia, where the distances are huge and EVs face special challenges. For Atkins, Australia has failed to define the issue it’s trying to solve. China, at least, knows what it wants: cleaner air.

“There is not a single solution with a single answer all around the world,” says Atkins, who believes targeting ordinary car-buyers in Australia is the wrong approach.

“I don’t see a revolution into the electric car because of travel patterns and journey times. But you still have pollution problems in cities, so you should target buses, taxis and vans: things that are urban operating, have defined mileage and are ‘back to base’.

“It’s easier to progress those fleets into electrified vehicles *because you define the problem and there is a solution.”

Adam Hammond of sustainability financier Bluetech Finance agrees.

“Taxis or delivery vans in a city environment can stop all the time and top up,” he says. “That market is much better suited to EVs in the beginning.”

If that’s Australia’s path to electrified vehicles then that needs to inform its role in production and infrastructure — if it has one. A proposal by Britain-based *industrialist Sanjeev Gupta to make EV passenger cars at Holden’s former Adelaide site might attract government support but would anyone buy the cars? A *revived car industry making vehicles nobody wants — how ironic would that be?

[Itsme]

I honestly believe true electric vehicles will be confined to cities/suburbia as this will be their role in future motoring, Hybrids will be around for the greater distances required.

Cheers

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by zipping

Total EV sales since 2010, *including estimates for Tesla *because it declines to release figures, suggest that in a total passenger fleet of 14 million there are 8000 EVs on Australian roads, equivalent to one in every 1750 cars. Vive la revolution!

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...42dd2c9dd54386

Nissan to the end of 2015 sold 566 of the LEAF model. I suspect total sales to now is close to but not over 1,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Global_sales

Mitsubishi sold 252 of their i-MieV before the model was withdrawn from the Australia market in 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsub...MiEV#Australia

As of two years ago there were nearly 600 Tesla cars registered in Australia:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/t...stralia-2016-1

So WHERE the hell do they get the 8,000 number from????? 2000 is closer to the mark.

[prydey]

I wonder why tesla are so secretive. Not sure if the situation has changed but they were yet to turn a profit with their automotive business, or maybe even overall. They rely heavily on forward orders and future investment.

I can't help feel its almost like a big ponzi scheme!

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by prydey

I wonder why tesla are so secretive. Not sure if the situation has changed but they were yet to turn a profit with their automotive business, or maybe even overall. They rely heavily on forward orders and future investment.

I can't help feel its almost like a big ponzi scheme!

https://www.marketplace.org/2013/05/...ssions-credits

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

https://www.marketplace.org/2013/05/...ssions-credits

haha, what a scam.

so governments mandate certain limits, and those companies that can't quite meet those limits just buy 'credits' off companies that have surplus 'emission credits' and then its all good happy families.

[Trump]

Originally Posted by prydey

haha, what a scam.

so governments mandate certain limits, and those companies that can't quite meet those limits just buy 'credits' off companies that have surplus 'emission credits' and then its all good happy families.

Emissions trading schemes are far worse than a mere scam.

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by Trump

Emissions trading schemes are far worse than a mere scam.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

or these days

Robbing Barry to pay Ahmet