On Fri, 25 Apr 2014 22:08:35 Daniel Jitnah wrote:
But really the best option is an electric car running on solar/wind generated electricity. Electric cars have a range of 400Km+ which compares well with petrol powered cars. The Tesla model S has a range of up to 500Km depending on the test cycle used - my personal record for driving a car without refuelling is 500Km.
The other problem with full electric cars and that is not mentioned as often as range is recharge time. For an electric car to be really practical a few things would ideally need to happen.
1. range to equal or exceed drivable distance during day time say at 100
Range to equal distance that most people actually drive is much easier to achieve. What portion of the population drives more than 400km in one go on a regular basis? A large portion of driving is to work and back, if you can recharge at work (which is being done) then you only need the range for a one- way trip. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/00000000000000000000000000000000/b7f... The ABS has the average driver driving for 87 minutes a day. On a day when an average driver does twice the average driving a Tesla S would still cover them without needing to be charged at work. I don't think I've driven 400km in a day at any time in the last 10 years. A Tesla S and the option of renting a car for longer journeys would do for me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_S The "supercharging" feature of the Tesla S allows fully charging the battery in 1 hour. The number of people who will drive 400km and not want a 1 hour break is vanishingly small.
kms/hr, say for 10-12 hrs = 1000kms to 1200kms, but probably closer to 1500kms to account for load variation. Then one could realistically drive all day and recharge overnight. Thats assuming recharge time 1hr = 1r driving. Or 2. Recharge time to e substantially reduced to say 1 hr = 8-10 hrs driving. Then you could drive for say 4 hrs stop for 1/2 hr recharge and drive another 4 hrs etc ...
3. You could also have a quick battery replacement mechanism, (like swapping your bbq gas bottle), where you basically pay for the charge + a small admin fee.
This has already been done in Israel. It could be done for taxis and couriers here and the Tesla S is designed for it (although the battery swap stations haven't been built). Most people won't need it though.
1. above is probably the most likely scenario to be available sooner than later. I read recently (will have to find reference, unless someone else has it handy?) that 800kms range electric cars is not too far away so thats a 100% improvement on the current ~400kms.
Just put more batteries in the car. But then you have to use more energy to transport batteries.
Cost of electric cars: They are still quite more expensive, although prices are coming down.
The Tesla S is designed to be cheaply serviced, according to the Wikipedia page service for everything other than tyres is covered for 4 years and you can pay an extra $4000 to cover the next 4 years. I think that servicing a typical petrol car from the age of 4 to 8 is going to cost more than $1000 per annum.
Car ownership: What do people expect and how do they use their car? Although by far the majority of car trips done by someone owning a car (specially private owners) would be daily commute for work/domestic purposes and would most likely fit in the 400 kms range, people would still want prefer a car that can easily do the "few times a year" 500+ kms holiday trip from Melbourne to Sydney or similar.
It's cheaper to hire a car for that.
Those who can afford it could have a small electric car for daily work commute, and a larger "long range (LR)" car for occasional long trips. However this means paying full rego and insurance for a car that sits in a garage most of the time. (thats another debate: I hate paying full rego for a car that only has driven <3000kms/yr in the last 5 yrs - at least I have been able to get substantial insurance discount, but its still grossly disproportionate to the distance driven)
http://www.goget.com.au/rates/ Owning a larger petrol/Diesel car for the few times a year that you need it is a significant cost too. GoGet charges $89 per day for renting a car on their minimum usage package, other car share companies might have cheaper offers. http://www.rentabomb.com.au/ Rent A Bomb has rates as low as $28 per day if you really want to save money. If you spent 10 days a year on a long holiday trip then that would cost $280 from Rent A Bomb. If you drive an hour to work and an hour home every day then a small electric car would save you a lot more than $280.
Alternatively, one could hire a LR car for holidays. If this scenario became a social norm, that would mean a probable peak demand for such LR cars during holiday times, and these cars sitting unused at other times - economically not an appealing proposition.
The number of people who actually do such long holidays is a lot smaller than you might think. From Melbourne you can drive to Warrnambool, Apollo bay, Phillip Island, or Ballaratt without getting close to the range of a Tesla S.
Car share models do exist currently but tend to be localised and I dont think any satisfy the long distance scenario above(?).
Car nowadays are generally designed and marketed for individual ownership. Even if they are fleet company cars, they are still designed to satisfy individual comfort preferences mostly. In contrast public transport vehicle are designed for the mass with lesser emphasis on individual preferences, obviously. If cars are to be build for sharing as standard practice, they would probably have to be designed differently, and have features to facilitate sharing.
The car share companies like GoGet have sorted out the remote unlocking and key sharing aspects. Car manufacturers such as Mercedes have sorted out the adjusting seat preferences to the driver. But a personal car is still more personal than a shared car. It becomes an issue of how much you want to save money.
Thats where public transport becomes so much more energy efficient! In fact flying is more energy efficient than driving the average car on the road today. Riding a motorbike would be more efficient.
I've seen claims that 2 or 3 people in a car can be comparable in terms of fuel per passenger to a mostly full passenger jet. So I guess a Prius with 4+ people will do a lot better. But you are correct that public transport is the way to go. Part of the problem is that people think of driving a car as an issue of freedom, when really driving time is part of work time. I'd rather do 8 hours work and 2 hours of reading a book or playing phone games than 8 hours of office work and 2 hours of driving work. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/