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Thread: Would Australia have enough Electricity (now) if everyone switched to EV ?

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    Would Australia have enough Electricity (now) if everyone switched to EV ?

    Well worth the time to watch, and hard to argue with the conclusion.


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    Um, very easy to argue the conclusion as he skipped straight over the challenges. Overall, a well put together video with facts, but the challenges he discussed at the end was less than a minute of the video and he completely glossed over them saying ‘yes the technology is there and the infrastructure can be built’ - a sweeping generalisation without any facts to back up my biggest point I’ve been making for some time - who is going to pay for the infrastructure and how much will it cost?

    I work almost daily with Network Engineers and they have no idea how it’s all going to be built as the current network can’t handle it and the costs are astronomical. I’ve recently been involved with some Tesla super charging stations - up to $1,000,000 of infrastructure for 6 chargers. So, using the same logic as the guy making the video I could come up with an easy sum to show some rough costs. Let’s say the 900,000 EV’s he was discussing were all on the road next year, and let’s say (I have no idea in reality) that there needed to be a supercharger for say 1 in 20 of those cars. That’s 45,000 chargers - let’s say at $150,000 each all in with the network infrastructure needed (that’s about what it’s costing) so that’s $6.75 Billion to do that.

    And his flippant hope that we can come up an extra 1.2% capacity for power. Australia is looking at shutting all it’s coal fired power stations in the next 15 years - they currently make up the majority of our power so if that happens, I can tell you we’ll all be riding horses again as there won’t be enough power to make your morning cup of coffee let alone power all the cars we have. Where’s this magical extra power coming from?

    Convenient that he didn’t bother to cover off any detail of the challenges - cost and who’s paying is the biggest issue IMO but if you look at all the data, I don’t think his basic premise stands up,
    If you need to contact me please email homestarrunnerau@gmail.com - thanks - Gav.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Homestar View Post
    Um, very easy to argue the conclusion as he skipped straight over the challenges. Overall, a well put together video with facts, but the challenges he discussed at the end was less than a minute of the video and he completely glossed over them saying ‘yes the technology is there and the infrastructure can be built’ - a sweeping generalisation without any facts to back up my biggest point I’ve been making for some time - who is going to pay for the infrastructure and how much will it cost?

    I work almost daily with Network Engineers and they have no idea how it’s all going to be built as the current network can’t handle it and the costs are astronomical. I’ve recently been involved with some Tesla super charging stations - up to $1,000,000 of infrastructure for 6 chargers. So, using the same logic as the guy making the video I could come up with an easy sum to show some rough costs. Let’s say the 900,000 EV’s he was discussing were all on the road next year, and let’s say (I have no idea in reality) that there needed to be a supercharger for say 1 in 20 of those cars. That’s 45,000 chargers - let’s say at $150,000 each all in with the network infrastructure needed (that’s about what it’s costing) so that’s $6.75 Billion to do that.

    And his flippant hope that we can come up an extra 1.2% capacity for power. Australia is looking at shutting all it’s coal fired power stations in the next 15 years - they currently make up the majority of our power so if that happens, I can tell you we’ll all be riding horses again as there won’t be enough power to make your morning cup of coffee let alone power all the cars we have. Where’s this magical extra power coming from?

    Convenient that he didn’t bother to cover off any detail of the challenges - cost and who’s paying is the biggest issue IMO but if you look at all the data, I don’t think his basic premise stands up,
    Put your thoughts in the comments on the youtube video,
    Im sure Robert is expecting the typical internet comments, it would be a change to get an intelligent comment from someone that knows what he is talking about .

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    I think the reality will be that you will need a lot more than 45K charging stations.
    Think about it for a sec.
    An average EV needs say 30 mins with a super charge to allow a 100-200km added range.
    45K points across Aus is very thin on the ground.

    an average ICE vehicle needs say 5 mins to top up a car and will net approx 600klms ... my D2 would get 800klm by comparison ... but lets just get rough figures here ... and there are roughly 6500 petrol stations of which many will cater for 12 or so vehicles at any one time.
    Then you not only need to multiply by the time taken to fill each respective vehicle type by, but then you need to divide by the number of klms the EV can travel before it needs a charge point again a quick and dirty figure would be 3x.

    Otherwise you end up with the situation where not only are the EV owners waiting 30mins for their vehicle to get them another 200klms, but they'll be waiting an estimated 1.5hrs before they get their vehicle to the charge point .. ie. total 'fill up' time taken would be 2hrs.

    Driving holidays with the family during the peak holiday periods will be a thing that folks used to do in the old days in their ICE vehicles.
    Arthur.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AK83 View Post
    I think the reality will be that you will need a lot more than 45K charging stations.
    Think about it for a sec.
    An average EV needs say 30 mins with a super charge to allow a 100-200km added range.
    45K points across Aus is very thin on the ground.

    an average ICE vehicle needs say 5 mins to top up a car and will net approx 600klms ... my D2 would get 800klm by comparison ... but lets just get rough figures here ... and there are roughly 6500 petrol stations of which many will cater for 12 or so vehicles at any one time.
    Then you not only need to multiply by the time taken to fill each respective vehicle type by, but then you need to divide by the number of klms the EV can travel before it needs a charge point again a quick and dirty figure would be 3x.

    Otherwise you end up with the situation where not only are the EV owners waiting 30mins for their vehicle to get them another 200klms, but they'll be waiting an estimated 1.5hrs before they get their vehicle to the charge point .. ie. total 'fill up' time taken would be 2hrs.

    Driving holidays with the family during the peak holiday periods will be a thing that folks used to do in the old days in their ICE vehicles.

    The "average" driver will rarely if ever need to use a supercharger. ABS says the average daily commute is 35km , Rural commute is 45km .

    Clearly this is the wrong demographic to 'spruke' EV as its full of outback tourers far from the domain of 35km commutes.

    Ive done my fair share of touring and spent 5 years full time on the road, But Ive almost exclusively driven my EV as a daily driver for the past 4 years, 20,000km and never once needed to charge anywhere other than a 15Amp outlet in my shed. I did plug into a Tesla destination charger just to see if I could, but other that that. For the odd long distance trip I need to make I have 3 fully registered ICE cars to chose from, but to be honest I don't actually remember the last time I bought petrol or diesel, but I keep them fully fuelled up and would be at least 6 months between trips to the servo.

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    yep, I totally get what you are saying here .. don't be in doubt about that.
    Oh! and I'm not arguing any points here .. just adding commentary to view it from another perspective.
    When everything just works on the 'average' basis .. yeah, makes sense that we could do like Europe and ban ICE sales in the year .. blah-blah ...

    But come 'peak stupidity' times, when everyone is in a freaking mad rush to get to their holiday destination of choice in record time ... 'average' data means nothing.

    You know what would be a more pertinent question to answer ... at what point will the globe run out of lithium reserves, and seeing that it's not 100% recyclable and not cheap to recycle at the moment.
    The ICE vehicle endured 100+ years of growth and development. I can't see current BEV trends to remain as they currently are .. a cheaper/more readily available supply of raw material or better recyclability is required.

    I still believe that, at current levels of technology, fuel cell is still the better long term option for powered transportation of all types(not just passenger cars).
    Arthur.

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    Lithium isn’t the major component in the batteries. Would Australia have enough Electricity (now) if everyone switched to EV ?

    It’s even rarer elements that are the challenge.

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    Quote Originally Posted by goingbush View Post



    The "average" driver will rarely if ever need to use a supercharger. ABS says the average daily commute is 35km , Rural commute is 45km .

    Clearly this is the wrong demographic to 'spruke' EV as its full of outback tourers far from the domain of 35km commutes.

    Ive done my fair share of touring and spent 5 years full time on the road, But Ive almost exclusively driven my EV as a daily driver for the past 4 years, 20,000km and never once needed to charge anywhere other than a 15Amp outlet in my shed. I did plug into a Tesla destination charger just to see if I could, but other that that. For the odd long distance trip I need to make I have 3 fully registered ICE cars to chose from, but to be honest I don't actually remember the last time I bought petrol or diesel, but I keep them fully fuelled up and would be at least 6 months between trips to the servo.
    I get where you’re coming from - my new job would actually be ideal for an EV - I travel around 40KM each way with the odd couple hundred km during the day to see clients, etc. work has 40KW of solar on the roof so could charge it while it’s parked up doing nothing - my previous job saw me doing around 1000km per week with some 800KM days so not practical there - still got a Hilux for my new commute though - supplied by work. I may ask about something different when it’s time to change it out - an EV would be ideal and if I needed to tow anything I could grab one of the spare utes or trucks at work, but not sure what I’d get for around $70K - which is what they’ll let me spend on a new vehicle - don’t want to drive a small **** box is all no matter how it’s powered.

    For long distance trips it would be back to ICE though - so there’ll be a need for them for decades to come I think.
    If you need to contact me please email homestarrunnerau@gmail.com - thanks - Gav.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AK83 View Post

    But come 'peak stupidity' times, when everyone is in a freaking mad rush to get to their holiday destination of choice in record time ... 'average' data means nothing.
    Not only that. We're lucky we're currently in a La Niña. When the cycle changes and we get heatwave conditions we're very much at risk of rolling brownouts as no amount of wind/solar can currently compensate for the decommissioning of plants like Hazlewood. Throwing a massive number of EVs into that mix, well it probably won't be pretty.



    Quote Originally Posted by AK83 View Post
    I still believe that, at current levels of technology, fuel cell is still the better long term option for powered transportation of all types(not just passenger cars).
    I agree, and they work. In California they are installing the infrastructure, and large manufacturers already have models in that market. And fill times are about the same as for LPG.
    ​JayTee

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    Energy regulator is already ringing my supply chain (me) and operations requesting we shut down sections of our plant on these high wind and/or high temp days.

    We cannot keep up as is…

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