Thread: EV general discussion

I posted the below chart a few days back in here. It's been a bit of an eye opener to me.

We've managed 10% of EV's for a couple of years now - and emissions are still rising. Our vehicle fleet is big, and a few hundred thousand EV's combined with our absolute insistence on diesel dual cab utes and possibly population growth mean we're going backwards!

I tender this article on the NVES. It shows it's going to be bad for manufacturers. Some of them might want to increase prices. Perhaps a ranger could have a bill of 3700 per car. It sounds a lot - but will that be enough to discourage people from buying a dual cab ute?

I actually don't think it will. In the scheme of an 70-100k I don't think it will be deal breaker.

In reality it's more likely ford will buy credits and sell a few EV's so that will reduce it a bit. So will the NVES make a difference to that chart below. I don't think it's going to be enough.

So there are only two ways we fix transport emissions. We persuade people to drive EV's or to just not drive (ideally!). IMHO we are going to have to do a lot more to encourage people to make better choices. And the longer we put it off the harder we are going to have to go.

PS If you don't like the two options above you should be encouraging everyone else to consider their transport choices.

How NVES will change the new car market - carsales.com.au

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

I posted the below chart a few days back in here. It's been a bit of an eye opener to me.

We've managed 10% of EV's for a couple of years now - and emissions are still rising. Our vehicle fleet is big, and a few hundred thousand EV's combined with our absolute insistence on diesel dual cab utes and possibly population growth mean we're going backwards!

I tender this article on the NVES. It shows it's going to be bad for manufacturers. Some of them might want to increase prices. Perhaps a ranger could have a bill of 3700 per car. It sounds a lot - but will that be enough to discourage people from buying a dual cab ute?

I actually don't think it will. In the scheme of an 70-100k I don't think it will be deal breaker.

In reality it's more likely ford will buy credits and sell a few EV's so that will reduce it a bit. So will the NVES make a difference to that chart below. I don't think it's going to be enough.

So there are only two ways we fix transport emissions. We persuade people to drive EV's or to just not drive (ideally!). IMHO we are going to have to do a lot more to encourage people to make better choices. And the longer we put it off the harder we are going to have to go.

PS If you don't like the two options above you should be encouraging everyone else to consider their transport choices.

How NVES will change the new car market - carsales.com.au

That is the dumbest thing I've seen today. How much has the australian population grown in the last 20 years. Take into account the number of people and cars, and the stupidity of this graph is "graphically" demonstrated. Back bashing the "dual cab ute" drum again. How tiresome. An electric throw-away would be eons worse for the environment that a twin cab ute. You see the twin cab ute is a functional vehicle that will last decades.

twin cab utes isn't a sparrows fart of the "transport" section of this graph. That will be shipping, trains, aeroplanes, trucking, transport. The idea that an electric throw-away will make even the tiniest measurable impact on this is stupidity at its greatest. EVs do nothing other than move pollution somehwere else. I reckon they are the worse thing we have done to the environment this century.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

Coolant is life of the car.

What you don't know about coolant is that in EV's - the system is sealed and the coolant doesn't get hot. They also use the AC to keep temps under control. Unlike in a ICE car the coolant doesn't go through a very hot engine. As far as I know, in normal operation typically it sits at barely above room temperature (typically 20-40). I was amazed when I touched a cooling pipe on a friends EV after they had driven some way to meet me. It was room temperature and the hose was soft because the system wasn't under pressure (although I'm told they are sealed and will pressurize).

From what I've read if you are hot lapping the nurburgring they can get hot. Fast charging the AC system controlls the temp.

Corrosion is massively accelerated in an ICE car by the temps. So I guess in an EV they seem to last.

So coolant lasts virdtually indefintely. It's a new world..

How does not getting hot stop the anti-corrosion inhibitors breaking down. Unless its running something like a waterless coolant, it is going to corrode and rust out in time. Jay lenos experiance with waterless coolant has sold me on a "anti-corrosion" benefits of it. though its heat transfering ability I'm sure is much less than simple water.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

How does not getting hot stop the anti-corrosion inhibitors breaking down. Unless its running something like a waterless coolant, it is going to corrode and rust out in time. Jay lenos experiance with waterless coolant has sold me on a "anti-corrosion" benefits of it. though its heat transfering ability I'm sure is much less than simple water.

Tesla use G48 which is a 50/50 glycol/water mix.

Apparently it helps that the system is sealed as it doesn't get exposed to air. They recommend not opening the system up unnecessarily.

I don't know why the corrosion protection doesn't give troubles. I can tell you though.. I have never ever not once heard of a tesla having corrosion problems. The only refferences to corrosion are external corrosion in ares where they salt the roads.

I would think that the only time the coolant would be changed would be if there was a leak or the lines were disconnected.

I have a saying when discussing vehicle foibles with people. I know I have a whole heap of defender specific issues that don't apply to toyotas. And Vice versa.

With EV's they don't have problems that ICE cars have. They just don't.. it's a different machine. Oil changes, coolant changes, brakes wearing. These are not EV problems.

I have a maintenance budget built into my lease. It allocates a little money for maintenance and tryes etc as you go. It's a toyota lease so I guess they set it like normal for Toyotas. As I approach the three year mark I've got 5k of unspent maintenance budget - because thus far the only maintenance money I've spent was paying for a tyre rotation once (because I was too lazy), and two tyre plugs.

• Lifetime Component: Under most circumstances, the coolant does not need to be replaced for the life of the vehicle, as it is considered a sealed system.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

Grid scale storage is an easier and cheaper solution compared to nuclear and it actually addresses the downside of renewables.

Anyone who says "Grid scale storage is an easier and cheaper solution" doesn't understand either the grid or storage. If either were true we'd have it right now, but it's complex, expensive and frankly still unreliable. A bit like "renewable" energy really.

One day maybe, but not any time soon.

Originally Posted by BradC

Anyone who says "Grid scale storage is an easier and cheaper solution" doesn't understand either the grid or storage. If either were true we'd have it right now, but it's complex, expensive and frankly still unreliable. A bit like "renewable" energy really.

One day maybe, but not any time soon.

I do understant it's hard. But the way it gets clasified as "easier and cheaper" is by comparing it to nuclear which is epically hard. I posted a video above. Basically all nuclear projects run late and over budget. Usually they take twice as long as planned. Oh and cost a motza.

By the time we have built nuclear we will have solved the problem another way.

Also by the nature of storage the economics tends to be not so good. Because if all goes well no one wants your product. So they are ideally funded by the government.

And as stated above, nuclear is stupid in australia. They don't throttle and what do you do with the renewables. Great in places with long cold winters when they are the only show in town.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

By the time we have built nuclear we will have solved the problem another way.

Good luck with that. Given there'll never be an attempt to "build nuclear", I can't see the problem getting "solved". There'll be decades of pontificating on how it might be solved, plenty of money spent on subsidies, additional transmission infrastructure and a **** load of solar and wind that'll end up buried after 20 years.

Heck, maybe they'll even finish Snowy 2. In the mean time, money will thrown at any project with a "green" tag regardless of the lifecycle and we'll all be drowning in debt, unable to turn our heaters on unless it's at mid-day in the middle of summer.

Pessimistic? Me? I've seen nothing to indicate why I'd be otherwise. I'm glad I'm in WA and disconnected from the cluster**** that is the NEM. We have the AEMO over here now, progressively ****ing up our power system, but at least we're not shackled to SA and Tasmania to drag us to the bottom. We still have a bit of base load generation to back us up.

Originally Posted by BradC

Good luck with that. Given there'll never be an attempt to "build nuclear", I can't see the problem getting "solved". There'll be decades of pontificating on how it might be solved, plenty of money spent on subsidies, additional transmission infrastructure and a **** load of solar and wind that'll end up buried after 20 years.

Heck, maybe they'll even finish Snowy 2. In the mean time, money will thrown at any project with a "green" tag regardless of the lifecycle and we'll all be drowning in debt, unable to turn our heaters on unless it's at mid-day in the middle of summer.

Pessimistic? Me? I've seen nothing to indicate why I'd be otherwise. I'm glad I'm in WA and disconnected from the cluster**** that is the NEM. We have the AEMO over here now, progressively ****ing up our power system, but at least we're not shackled to SA and Tasmania to drag us to the bottom. We still have a bit of base load generation to back us up.

I do agree. I maintain a solid source of the problem with all this is the grid is mostly privatised. Private companies just don't have the vested interest in doing stuff like this. Ideally they want to make the most money they can off what they have with the minimum amount of investment. They have no interest in greening the grid, lowering prices or increasing reliability. They just want yield. That's what companies do. You privatise a public service, that's what you get.

But I'd like to point out the NBN. The government knew they needed a better internet network. They had sold Telstra and they had no interest in doing it. Multiple players and no one wanted a bar of it. So, they basically nationalised it. And look I know its been a cluster but it shows that if it's important enough they can do it. That's what needs to happen to the power grid. Nationalisation. It's the only way I can see it being fixed. I have to give a little bit of credit to the libs. They realised that for their cray cray nuclear scheme the only chance anyont had of beliving it was possible was if it was done by the state. They knew no one in the private sector would touch it.

I mean to hack a saying I have faith that the Australian government will do the right thing and what needs to be done - but only after they've tried everything else first. That's where we are now.