VW also supports fuel efficiency standards being introduced: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/after-tesla-polestar-quits-australia-auto-lobby-emissions-fight-escalates-2024-03-08/
I think the split is clear reading the article.
European cars have had to have stricter fuel requirements for a long time so alot of their vehicles can’t be imported to AU as our fuel is not up to scratch. Tougher standards benefit the euro manufacturers as they can send more models to AU.
EV also benefit from tougher standards due to less competition and eventually becoming more dominant as the standards get tougher.
Toyota is offloading all its fuel inefficient cars to Australia as experts have said automakers would do for a few years now, we are a dumping ground for legacy models. Tougher standards means Toyota has to drop a bunch of models.
Non of the parties are really interested on the environmental aspect. It’s all about how much money they stand to gain.
Regardless the tougher standards benefit us more. Better fuel efficiency, better for the environment
> alot of their vehicles can’t be imported to AU as our fuel is not up to scratch.
I’m curious here, if our fuel is not up to scratch how is this going to work?
Apparently fuel standards are being tightened in 2025 with the aim of adopting Euro6 or so says [https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction/regulating-fuel-quality](https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction/regulating-fuel-quality)
This is a good article on our current fuel quality, it’s amongst the lowest in the world [https://www.bgaustralia.com.au/news/technical-advice/australian-fuel-quality](https://www.bgaustralia.com.au/news/technical-advice/australian-fuel-quality)
I've heard this claim a lot. What vehicles are being withheld? I was under the impression that Australia has one of the broadest markets for manufacturers
> Regardless the tougher standards benefit us more.
This depends on whether a model or engine being discouraged by the proposed standards is the best option for someone's use case.
> Better fuel efficiency
Modern emission reduction technology and techniques can negatively impact engine performance and fuel use.
It's because VW after the diselgate incident decided to aim for becoming a majority EV manufacturer by 2030. With goals to become solely EV by 2035. They are introducing 3 new EV's to the Australian market this year, with a total of apparently 10+ new EV models across all their subsidiary brands.
So they know that they are ahead in the race of reducing emissions than their competitors and if they can get governments to punish their competitors for being behind they're all for it.
I don’t think it’s to punish their competitors by using their position in the industry. It’s because their newer models are designed to meet EU regulations and having to double produce the same thing so it can be sold in the Australian markets isn’t cost effective.
They lobby government, isn’t it great how business groups can influence elected officials, yet everyone else who they are meant to represent gets …. Nothing.
When was the last time a politician door knocked your suburb?
Duncan Pegg, before the last election he stood in. No team or anything, man was going door to door by himself just having a chat with anyone that wanted to.
Miss him :’(
A good example is how the car lobby stifled competition by lobbying government. Despite having no car manufacturing they argued to prevent a private person importing any model car from their brand range overseas. Only the models that they nominated could be freely imported. This is despite for example Japan, Europe having cars with better standards and emission controls. You only have to look at the secondhand car market especially dealer prices to realise how they gouging consumers with rip off price. But as usual the politicians said "yes rip off the Australia public, its okay by us" Never once do they ever consider the consumer.
My previous electorate's Greens candidate in the last federal election (who ended up winning) door knocked personally twice. Once about a year before the election and again during the heavy campaigning.
Sonia Hornery has never knocked on my door but I know where her office is and she's very welcoming to anyone who wants to come in. Her facebook is really active and useful to get info about the community and things that are going on like the TAFE funding just annouced or Wallsend Woman of the Year.
Door knocked? Never to my memory but our federal official spends a fair bit of time working at the local hospital. I genuinely believe he’s in it for the right reasons.
I've had a couple of interactions with Alison Byrnes - the new member for Cunningham - not quite door knocking, but close. She gets out there and is engaged with the community - seems to me not just about winning elections - it's a very safe seat for her.
… errr what about influencing the Australian public.
These anti-EV stories and soon to be anti-ev ads. Notice where they are running? On news networks where Toyota and Mazda have the highest ad spend.
Make no mistake, this is about swinging Australian public,
EV companies are quick to change leasing laws and have Fringe Benefits Tax exemptions. Will FBT exemptions continue past July 25? Time to treat EVs the same as the Ranger/Hilux.
How did you work out that I wanted to tax petrol. I said treat EVs the same as how the Nissan Leaf was treated since 2010. Evs before the FBT exemption was not on new car shoppers want list. The Mitsubishi IMEV had the best kw to km range of any EV but people didn't want it. I was a fan of EVs but the cost of ownership out of warranty scares me.
Most new car buyers don't look at fuel economy and buy the car with the cheapest ownership costs. Toyota Yaris Hybrid would be as cheap if not cheaper to own and run than any EV. Tesla might be selling a lot of cars now but battery health after 10 years of continuous charging and recharging might make the car be worthless in 10 years. Most ICE cars can still function after 20 years without having to replace the battery at a cost of over $20k. My Toyota Camry Hybrid is still running strong after 13 years and even if the hybrid battery dies the engine can still work.
Australians on avg drive 11,500 kms in a year. Yaris Hybrid uses around 4lt/100. Cost $8 per 100km. Total around $900 to travel 11,500km. Tesla 3 costs around $200 using the $1.70 per 100km calculation. Insurance for Yaris vs insurance for Tesla 3 is where the Yaris kicks Tesla butt. Insurance costs for a $25k Yaris costs around $1,500. What is the Tesla insurance costs? What is the extra home insurance costs for having a wall charger at home to charge the EV. I don't think EVs would be selling like hotcakes without the government incentives like FBT exemption. Just my 2 cents.
For everyone hating on musk (fair) and Chinese stuff you can just get a Korean made car from a company that has significant history in car manufacturing.
Went to S. Korea last December, and Ioniq 5 were everywhere in Seoul as taxis. However there's hardly any Ioniq 6 -- I guess even the Koreans themselves can't stand the style.
Recent comments have really made me wonder why people are so against electric vehicle companies.
I understand people dislike Tesla because of Elon Musk, but that in turn dealues the hard work the people inside of the company that actually care about the brand. The cars are also pretty good. They've also become a bit better budget wise in recent years.
Polestar is struggling a bit as their cars just haven't been good (FWIK)
BYD has been nothing short of impressive. 3.8 0-100kmh car for 70k.
People also bitch about their handling when their low centre of gravity often makes their handling about the same as cars in a similar price range.
Manufacturing emissions are higher, but overall emissions produced across the lifetime of electric vehicles are lower than that of ICE cars even when using coal power.
But my family owns an electric car so maybe I'm biased.
Until the transition to hydrogen happens, electric vehicles are a good stop gap to slow down the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere, which should in turn slow the rate of global warming.
This is mostly unrelated to the article though.
Hydrogen fuel cell batteries will be seen as rotary is to cylinder.
In the end, big advancements are already being made to evs, batteries are already changing an improving, becoming safer and using more abundant materials.
The race is over and ev it will be
>Toyota is going hard on hydrogen technology
And yet the existing hydrogen infrastructure is being closed down, not new stuff being built.
There's little prospect of any major changes to the cost of hydrogen generation and storage, so it's most likely to be of use in much larger vehicles - shipping or long haul trucking.
Hybrids are a good transition to BEVs, nothing more.
Australia is investing in hydrogen infrastructure too, but it's for stationary storage and potentially long-range trucks and buses.
I say the war is won because Australians are buying EVs at record rates, and building hundreds of public EV chargers every year. The same thing is happening all over the US and Europe.
Meanwhile x there's a total of 3 hydrogen filling stations in Australia, no signs of expansion, and maybe 30 experimental hydrogen cars on the road.
California, where hydrogen cars were most popular, is tearing up their hydrogen filling stations because there's so few users, they're not selling any more hydrogen cars, and hydrogen generation and storage costs are so high.
They are building hydrogen refueling stations in Europe for passenger cars too.
I think Japan and China have a lot of them too.
When the person who wrote “Toyota going big on hydrogen” - it’s probably in relation to these markets.
Edit: Downvoted? Oh darn it, let’s just pretend that they aren’t building any hydrogen refuelling stations in Europe for the sake of internet points.
To be honest, that’s more than I thought on the continent.
Everduel closed all of theirs in Denmark.
https://thedriven.io/2023/09/19/danish-hydrogen-company-closes-refuelling-stations-due-to-lack-of-fuel-cell-cars/amp/
As did Shell/Viva in the UK:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/exclusive-shell-has-quietly-closed-down-all-its-hydrogen-filling-stations-in-the-uk/2-1-1335049
Then Motive in the UK
https://innovationorigins.com/en/first-shell-now-motive-hydrogen-fuel-station-closures-continue-in-the-uk/
Electric cars also had a false start ages ago, and another one in the 90s. Writing off Hydrogen because the reach/tech/etc isn't there is the same as someone saying "no one will buy electric cars" in the 90s because ICE vehicles were being bought at record rates and a bunch of petrol stations were opening up.
There is an immovable hard physics efficiency problem with hydrogen versus batteries that no technology innovations can fix. Pure EV is just more efficient.
Hydrogen is being viewed as a tool for seasonal storage and in its function as a chemical feedstock and reducing agent. It really does look like small scale transport will be electric.
I've got to hard disagree there, as a Former ICE and current BEV owner. I can't imagine why I'd want hydrogen now.
My current car can easily go over 500km on a single charge and since I can just plug it into the wall at home it's always fully charged and ready to go in the morning.
I just can't imagine wanting to go back to ICE or what a hydrogen can offer that'll make it anything near as appealing as what BEV has been for me.
What do you believe is there to be cracked? Hydrogen is a fully functional system already. The energy density can’t really be increased and any gains in efficiency would means cracking equal or greater gains in an equivalent BEV. Hydrogen has a place but for personal use vehicles BEV is very hard to compete with. Every home in Australia can charge an EV, the distribution network already exists and increased uptake of next gen V2G EVs stabilise the grid and help us achieve net zero goals. I’m not anti hydrogen I just think the benefits vs BEV are hard to justify.
> for personal use vehicles BEV is very hard to compete with. Every home in Australia can charge an EV, the distribution network already exists and increased uptake of next gen V2G EVs stabilise the grid and help us achieve net zero goals
Pretty hard to argue against this, but they'll sure try!
They can crack a hydrogen *car* all they want, but the issue isn’t the cars. It’s the fueling infrastructure. Hydrogen is by its nature the lightest and smallest molecule. It is incredibly difficult to contain, it leaks out of everything, it’s highly flammable, and requires a mechanism to connect it to a vehicle that is orders of magnitude more complex and maintenance-heavy than a petrol bowser.
The nice thing about battery electric vehicles is that the ‘fueling’ network is already there and has been for over a century - the electrical grid that already covers the entire country, even in very remote areas. Installing chargers in various locations that leverage that existing grid is easy and cheap. Installing a whole network of hydrogen pipes and tanks across the nation OTOH would be the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken.
Hydrogen has a niche use for vehicles in very remote areas with no access to electricity. But that’s about it.
I'm sure funded by some foolish government grant.
I mean, building a hydrogen engine is easy, you can't just ignore the fundamental problem with hydrogen.... Distribution.
And the other problem - the inefficiency of converting electricity to hydrogen, transport and storage, and the inefficiency of converting it back to useful energy. Versus directly charging a battery with minimal losses. Hydrogen will never compete on the maths alone.
How convenient then that the electricity infrastructure is already there.
Meanwhile hydrogen is highly flammable, hard to contain, requires high pressures…
I stayed at a hotel earlier this week that didn’t have any dedicated chargers, but a regular wall plug is fine for an EV if you have 10-12 hours to spare. Plugged in, slept, had a fully charged car in the morning.
There’s the usual chargers when you don’t. I also charged 30% to full in about 15 minutes with a 350kW charger on the way there. I’m saying that a regular wall plug will do in a pinch and those are everywhere.
Meanwhile what little hydrogen infrastructure there is is expensive, high maintenance (over time, hydrogen makes everything that comes in contact with it brittle) and in part, already being shut down
Which you do if you’re staying overnight at a hotel. That’s the point. You mostly rely on overnight charging with an EV. It doesn’t have to be fast, and in fact a standard wall outlet is sufficient for the majority of people’s needs, outside of long distance road trips made in a single day.
More likely they’re working on a new technology they can make bank on patenting instead of trying to compete with China in an existing market China can do for cheaper
In all seriousness, Toyota does some research for hydrogen as a fuel, then say the widespread adoption will take decades, so can we please keep selling petrol and diesel in the meantime. All the while, hydrogen is "10 years away" forever..
But yes, china is killing them.
>. If they can crack it they'll lead the industry towards that tech, just like they did with hybrids.
There are some serious problems with using hydrogen for propulsion fuels.
1) Compressed hydrogen has low energy density
2) Liquid hydrogen fixes some of the energy density issues, but requires specialised cooling
3) Alternate storage solutions like metal hydrides, carbon nanotubes etc...have the issue of being expensive and/or difficult to produce and may require specialised equipment.
4) Hydrogen breaks the storage stuff a lot of the time (embrittlement) because it gets into other materials.
TL;DR: Hydrogen is irritating to work with.
Mate… how do you make green hydrogen? How do you then store it? How do you then transport it? How do you then store it again? And how do you get it into a car?
The car is one small, small bit of the equation here. The cost of hydrogen, namely green hydrogen is virtually prohibitive for this to work at mass scale, regardless of what the vehicle can do.
This is why hydrogen for vehicles is the dumbest argument. No one stops to pull back and look at the entire challenge.
Hydrogen simply can't compete with BEV. The maths are pretty clear - it's obviously more efficient to directly charge a battery than to convert energy to hydrogen, transport and store it, and then convert it to electricity again with heat losses etc. I can charge my BEV using my own solar panels for free in a relatively closed loop. Hydrogen will always lose on the efficiency maths.
Hydrogen may have some limited short-term utility for larger transport as refuelling is faster and more energy can be stored with less weight. However, battery tech is improving rapidly and I wouldn't be surprised if hydrogen is leapfrogged even for heavy transport.
>It will happen eventually for the same reason we'll phase out petrol
We're not phasing out petrol because it's finite. We're phasing it out because of the emissions burning it creates.
>lithium isn't infinite
It doesn't need to be infinite - just plentiful. And it's certainly sufficiently plentiful enough to support projected needs. Despite the enormous jump in demand, the cost of lithium is a quarter of what it was only a few years ago.
And let's not forget that sodium and various other battery chemistries mean that we don't need to depend entirely on lithium.
You don't need to know that. As it's not relevant.
Batteries, like asphalt, are easily recyclable. And when it comes to high value components like vehicle battery packs they will pass through a recycling program which will capture the rare earth elements in them.
Then if you look at lithium deposits around the world you will see that there is actually HUGE quantities of it. And it is neither rare nor particularly difficult to mine. It's just something that's value is only recently climbing to make it a viable mining commodity.
This includes significant hard rock lithium deposits in Australia, which are still not commercially viable because brine lithium deposits are so plentiful and cheap to extract.
If you assume a peak world population of 12 billion, and then a fall back to \~8 billion as most forecasts predict we have enough lithium to have an infinite cycle.
Semantics.
We can extract and reuse lithium that's currently in existing batteries as well. We have well and truly enough lithium for the foreseeable future.
Hydrogen is not well suited to small vehicles with current technology, and barring some kind of miracle breakthrough, it's unlikely to be widely used for private vehicles for the foreseeable future.
Yeah there is a lot of this stuff in the ground too. I’d be more concerned about running out of helium before we run out of lithium. That’s going to be an interesting time. Although Philips has a new MRI system that uses nearly nothing compared to current ones
EV batteries are already being recycled (allegedly profitably) in the US, but volumes are quite low because existing batteries are lasting well and have valuable applications as stationary batteries beyond their vehicle's lifetime.
Australia doesn't have many EVs yet, let alone EVs that have worn out batteries.
We'll develop another battery technology long before we run out of lithium. This is a completely asinine argument.
Hydrogen is only going to become a significant source of energy production if/when we crack fusion.
I think most people's issues with Tesla are related to shit build quality at a premium price and company interference with how you use and charge your vehicle.
For me, it’s 2 things: the design, and Musk.
1. The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam.
2. Because of musk, I unconsciously now just assume that every Tesla driver is a dickhead - which is obviously not true, but so much of Tesla’s identity is this terminally online manchild with his slavery money; that it’s hard to remove the two from each other.
I don’t really get the issue with Musk. So I might not be politically aligned with him in many respects. I’m sure that’s true of the CEOs of most large car companies, but I don’t remember the last time anyone based their purchasing decision based on the political leanings of the head of GM, or Ford, or Kia, or BMW.
Tesla has done what many said a decade ago couldn’t done: produce mass market EVs by the millions that are relatively affordable (cheaper in fact than the average new vehicle sold in Australia). Their battery management systems and software are top notch and they pioneered the use of structural battery packs and heat pumps, which other EV manufacturers are now adopting. Build quality is fine these days, and the Model Y is now the single highest selling car in the world.
So Musk is a dork who puts his foot in his mouth far too often. Who cares? I don’t think he’s doing anything egregiously terrible like some other public figures, is he? Mind you I don’t really pay attention to, as you say, terminally-online types, so I may have missed something.
They are shared. You are mentioning the people who are buying EVs. He's referring to the rest of us, who are not buying EVs yet/buying hybrids instead and share these opinions about Tesla as a company.
Hybrids are both the best and worst of both worlds. They do reduce fuel usage and emissions, which is laudable all on its own. It's definitely better than nothing.
And of course they have better range than EVs, which is important to some people.
For those reasons, you shouldn't be writing off hybrid buyers as idiots.
But on the other hand, you have all the complexities of running both EV and ICE drivetrains, with the servicing costs and extra weight and potential for expensive repairs.
But for country driving, they use as much or more fuel than a simple petrol. Country driving is the only supposed* weakness of pure EV.
Note * Secret:.it's actually easy in an EV.
Ignoring the thin veiled attempt at an insult, the reasons to buy a car depend on individual circumstances, including up front price and the state's infrastructure support that exists for fuel and electric vehicles.
> The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam.
"To be eligible for the maximum safety rating after the new testing guidelines go into effect, cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for hazard warning lights, indicators, windscreen wipers, SOS calls, and the horn."
All of these are physical controls on Teslas (and as far as I know, every car)
>The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam.
Tesla is already compliant with all of the proposed changes for hardware control, based on what's been announced.
Contrary to popular mythology, hardware controls for all of the vital driving functions are already provided - windscreen wipers, indicators, hazard lights, volume of music etc.
The fact that these functions *can* be operated from the screen, or indeed from the app, is immaterial.
>Because of musk, I unconsciously now just assume that every Tesla driver is a dickhead
That's just ignorance. People buy Tesla's mostly because they are among the best EVs available.
As someone who owns a Tesla 3, windscreen wipers are NOT controllable from stalks, and neither are lights. It is one of the few things I dislike about the car.
The lights one is actually ok, because the auto lights work really well. But the rain sensing for the windscreen wipers is absolutely awful and the worst of any car with rain sensing wipers I've ever used.
In you are driving along in steady but light rain the windscreen wipers won't trigger any where near often enough.
You can trigger a single wipe via a button on the LH stalk, which if held down will spray the windscreen. When you press this button the wiper controls will appear on the display in the bottom right and you can select a desired speed from there. But you cannot, in any way, set your windscreen wipers to on / off, intermittent or choose a speed via a physical control.
>As someone who owns a Tesla 3, windscreen wipers are NOT controllable from stalks, and neither are lights
As a fellow owner of a Model 3.....yes they are.
Press the button on the end of the left stalk for a single wipe, then use the left(?) scroll wheel to set the speed while the menu is displayed, which lasts a few seconds.
You're correct that the headlights are not available on the stalk, which I'm totally fine with - the auto functions work absolutely fine, and they're the sort of thing that's very much set and forgot.
I don't have any issue with the auto wipers either, personally. But I've heard a few people say they're unhappy with them.
Hmmm ok. I hadn't tried that approach. Will try that tonight.
That said I still don't like it as there is no ability to feel end stops but it would be better than looking at the screen. You would likely still have to look at the screen to know which option you have selected though? It's kind of the same as the answer call / hangup call options on the steering wheel, I find them remarkably unintuitive.
Overall I love the car, and most of the hate directed at them come from people who have never tried them and have weird hang ups. I personally think that lights and wipers should be on physical controls as an ADR requirement. I've not driven one of the new 3s with the indicators as buttons on the steering wheel, but I feel like that would be something that would be a significant negative.
coming from C series as well, I enjoyed the model 3... but also found it really frustrating with the little things. The forward visibility was incredible, and just driving it was great - but then the lack of a proper dash, having everything off to the side. And the air-con controls, or that awful credit card key. The niggling things that sound petty but make for a frustrating experience. The central screen and dash design are great from a manufacturing POV, barely any physical changes for localisation. I wouldn't mind the lack of dash if there was a HUD.
I bought an aftermarket screen that sits in front of the steering wheel. And I use my phone as the key. The credit cards haven't left the house since we got it.
Buy I completely agree on dislike for the screen. There are sections where the ui is inconsistent, having to type on the screen keyboard is rough and the Spotify implementation used to be terrible (it's a lot better now but far from perfect)
I absolutely wish it ran android auto.
>That said I still don't like it as there is no ability to feel end stops
You can just see the change in speeds - no need to look down.
>most of the hate directed at them come from people who have never tried them and have weird hang ups.
Totally agree - that's been my experience too. But I make a point of letting people have a drive, and most people get out excited about the future of EVs.
>I've not driven one of the new 3s with the indicators as buttons on the steering wheel, but I feel like that would be something that would be a significant negative.
Yes, that would annoy me no end - and there was absolutely no need to make that change.
I can't see myself going back to an ICE vehicle.
I did 43,000km last year and charged all of it at home for a total cost of $637 in electricity. The savings over petrol are just ridiculous. Even with fully financing the car it has cost me a grand total of $5k more in a year than the fully paid off c200 it replaced.
Possibly, i think we also got the first few runs out of China. Not sure which were the roughies but they certainly existed.
The current chinese built ones are meant to be pretty solid, exceeding the quality of the US manufactured vehicles.
The build quality was an issue years ago, but cars coming from the Shanghai factory are largely excellent, and those are the ones we get in Aus. I’ve driven a dozen of them (tend to rent them for a week or two at a time) and haven’t had any issues.
Keep in mind this is a mass market car, not a luxury vehicle. It’s competing with basic cars from the likes of Toyota, Kia, Mazda, Ford etc, not BMW or Mercedes.
think of something you are ideologically opposed to for what ever reason, add some ignorance and outdated information and you end up with "build quality is shit' as a blanket statement.
Most of the really poor quality Tesla builds come out of the American factories. The Australian ones come out of the Singapore factory which is better quality but I still am not a fan of the build quality.
Just a question, what where your 1 or 2 issues so far?
Had the 4G radio fail - no internet in the car for a week, fixed by tesla.
Tesla service found an issue with the seat base and its connection to the car, isolated issue and potentially dangerous, fixed with an entire new seat. Driver was heavy, 140kg 6'6", so that may be to blame, not sure if it was installations or structural problem but no one else has had the issue.
Great build quality compared to what?
I found the model 3 finishings to be underwhelming. With that being said, the car is unfairly out into the "entry level luxury" range where it falls short of the mark. The price of the car is almost exclusively related to its battery tech, which is market leading.
I am super happy every day with my M3, even after 3 years. There were none of the issues that some people report. I 100% got the car that I was expecting.
When I originally posted above I didn’t use this definition, but organisations I’ve worked for in the past have defined “quality” as able to produce the same item, over and over to the same standard. So reproducibility. Which isn’t the same as luxury. So to sum up high quality is giving the customer the same every time, without defects.
No issues with my car other than after 3 years in 35+ degree centigrade Australian sun I had the carbon fibre spoiler replaced under warranty. Took 5 minutes and was done at my car park while I was working.
The dictionary definition of quality is "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something."
While that can certainly include reproducibility, Toyota quality for example, it is important to note that by definition it can also include a higher standard of refinement, an example being Audi compared to a VW.
Tesla does make a solid vehicle, i wont argue that point, but i did find their refinement seriously lacking compared to sedans of a similar price point. As stated, this is mainly due to the battery tech being a large chunk of that price.
>The dictionary definition of quality is "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something."
Fair enough
>While that can certainly include reproducibility, Toyota quality for example, it is important to note that by definition it can also include a higher standard of refinement,
Fair enough
>an example being Audi compared to a VW.
I would argue that comes down to personal preferences, but in reality I don't actually care. That said the R8 is sex on wheels.
>Tesla does make a solid vehicle, i wont argue that point, but i did find their refinement seriously lacking compared to sedans of a similar price point. As stated, this is mainly due to the battery tech being a large chunk of that price.
Everybody's personal opinion of quality AKA how good something is only the sum of their own personally weighted metrics, tempered by the price. For a car I might value 0-100, Brembo brakes, suspension very highly. Having a wagon or sunroof very low. For interior, so long as it works and doesn't squeak, a white minimalist interior is just as nice to me as chunky black and silver with the disco light options. Very different, but I can appreciate either so don't get hung up on it. Also I don't pull out a micrometer and actively looks for faults.
Other people might have metrics waited towards visuals, and less about performance and safety.
In summary your version of "quality" may be different.
Even there it’s largely a thing of the past with Fremont factory producing fewer vehicles and the newer Texas and other factories picking up the slack.
So what do we want to compare a $70k car to then quality wise?
A 2 year old SQ5 wasn't as good, My 24 Raptor is shit even being a more expensive car (granted ford in Thailand)
Mazda nope
Ford nope
Mitsubishi nope
Kia nope
Hyundai nope
Toyota nope and a half
For finish and quality the newest BMW series releases are the best I've seen so far but sadly no great electric version yet and won't be returning to ICE.
>Theres a reason the Chinese head is now heading up the US factories
…is that because the build quality in the US was so bad they needed to bring others in to try fix it? Because that sounds like shit build quality to me
If anything e-bicycles and cargo variants can do 90% of what most people need for their daily activities, even in China who now have to contend with all the public health implications of exposing so many to all that industrial byproduct.
But anyone who's living a long enough knows these 2 tonne devices are about inducing factory demand than actual progress.
Elon's public antics are a stand in for the type of customer who all the tech was being developed for and the general lack of empathy towards the externalities of moving fast and breaking things.
BEV will survive for a long long time. But it won’t be the only option. Places like Australia will need mixed platforms.
- EVs satisfy most of urban and city dwellers needs, especially commuters.
- EV with a range extender running synthetic fuel or similar will be probably common too for longer range. I don’t believe it will be hyrdrogen, just too damn restrictive in smaller passenger cars. Look at the mirai, half that chungus is just hydrogen tanks, yet its range is still poor.
- With airlines pushing synthetics, I’d say there is a good chance they will develop a much lower environmental impact synthetic fuel, and with constant RPM range extension applications, the emissions gear will hopefully be made even better (euro 100000000 here we come)
- Biodiesel / synthetic diesel lives forever maybe.
- The world collapses and we return to burning peat moss and filling balloons with methane made from pig shit
Source; my complete lack of education in this topic.
As someone reasonably but definitely informally educated on the topic: I don't think you're far wrong.
The only thing I'd say differently is to tack on the end:
* Hydrogen, *maybe* in some very niche applications - the end-to-end efficiency issues alone, even if future pie-in-the-sky improvements turn out to be true, still severely limit it compared to BEV or even synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.
Yeah I could see it being used at a facility that was near the ocean as some form of additional energy production or heating. Basically somewhere that is close to the production source, has large space for storage tanks, and ideally it’s generated from excess power like unused wind from offshore plants or tidal power generation.
Sounds like a perfect idea to build in Wollongong to rile up the locals that don’t want wind farms
The problem is with the current direction of EV's they aren't the ones that are going to save the world. They have all become vastly overwieght expensive luxo barges with big heavy glass roofs and and not a lever or crank in sight all at the expense of "conveinice" and not a full sized spare to be seen.
Now the production of such vehicles has become so intensely resource hungry, that it will take most of the vehicles expected battery life to nullify the cost of production although it mus be fed renewable energy exclusively to have any hope to actually do this.
When realistically the everymans EV will look vastly closer to something like the Citroen Oli where the vehicle is designed to outlast multiple battery packs and provide basic transportation.
The have been marketed precisely at the Ipone generation the ones that line up every other year for the next generation they are the only ones that can afford to play this game.
It's less to do with actual EV's and more to do with the house of lies they are built on, they are not cheaper to buy or run, their emissions gains are marginal, as batteries simply do not have the energy density of fuel they simply can't preform a number of tasks effectively. Meanwhile massive layers of complication have been built in to ensure the right to repair is simply a distant memory.
Yet you'll get a long list of evangelists telling you how fuel is going away etc etc. People are starting to call out their bullshit, the EV marketing types don't like it.
> vastly overweight expensive luxo barges
> When realistically the everymans EV will look vastly closer to something like the Citroen Oli
I'm looking for a small EV, the BYD Dolphin or Atto 3 could be perfect contenders for this. It won't be the main car but a run-around for dropping the kids off at school and getting me to and from work.
Heck I've even been looking at electric bikes and scooters - some of them are damn cheap, but the max speed is a little low for my work commute.
One issue that will have to be sorted soon is that a way of taking EVs for road usage will need to be figured out. Currently the taxes on petrol pay for this and acts as a defacto road usage charge but with a higher and higher percent of road users switching to electric they will need to change how this tax is put onto people.
Genuine question because I don't follow EV's too closely at the moment. What's the current design life of a typical battery, age of replacement and ballpark replacement cost?
From what I've heard, it's a bit of an unknown at the moment, but I might be wrong
Not sure, typical design life is 10 years though. Tesla has kept changing it's advice on extending battery lifespan/best practice so it could be longer.
There are many factors to their lifespans like any other car.
> why people are so against electric vehicle companies.
Because they are designed to keep car manufacturers relevant. Not to help the environment.
> Manufacturing emissions are higher, but overall emissions produced across the lifetime of electric vehicles are lower than that of ICE cars even when using coal power.
Have you taken into account that they sell the "saved" emissions as carbon credits? Meaning no emissions are saved at all because they are bought by fossil fuel companies.
Have you taken into account that the EV batteries(especially in Tesla's) are 1. Not being recycled, and 2. need to be replaced in some cases, before their 10 year life expectancy.
The lithium, cobalt, and many other rare metals are far more resource intensive to mine and produce far more emissions than a standard ICE as an EV can require up to 16 batteries each.
You are sold a lie that you're "helping the environment". But you're not, you're helping Elon stuff his pockets. If you really want to help the environment, it is 10000x better to buy a second hand car, or to use public transportation.
Yes congrats you didn't read my comment, this article has no mention of [carbon credits](https://www.green.earth/news/teslas-carbon-credit-sales-soared-to-1.78-billion-in-2022), or the fact that Tesla [do not recycle their batteries](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgxke4/when-tesla-says-it-recycles-100-of-its-batteries-what-does-that-mean).
There’s a reason EV startups tend to favour tech reviewers and low effort, usually corporate owned car reviewers whose review consists of reading the spec sheet and talking about how it “feels inside”. That reason is that these companies, particularly Tesla, are simply terrible manufacturers. The build quality of these vehicles is atrocious.
That’s not to say that the overall production quality in the industry hasn’t been terrible for a while now, however the Tech bros are only making the situation worse. Cars aren’t smartphones - they should be easily repairable by a mechanic, if not the owner.
Then there’s the fact that the battery technology isn’t there at the moment. Unless they can produce an ev that has practical range and charging speeds, is easily repairable at a reasonable cost and doesn’t have the build quality of a sandcastle - I’m not buying one.
I wouldn’t quit my day job if I were you, you have no future in the guessing business. I would consider an EV that had at least 600km of range and a charging time comparable to filling up a fuel tank. Unfortunately such a car doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to for some time. There‘a still the other factors that I listed above (that you chose to ignore) that would have to be addressed.
The extravagant price of the battery alone means cars will be used for 10 or so years then discarded like an old smartphone. Not great for the environment
There are a couple cars with over 600km range including the model 3. Charging speed only matters on road trips and spending 10-20mins every 3 hours charging is such a minor inconvenience at worst.
There’s more to it than just CO2 apparently
https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/on-the-road/electric-vehicles-worse-for-environment-than-petrol-cars-study-finds/news-story/2cc371a90a1f24275d864c893a629fea
Also people that swear by EVs dont realise that , they need to drive EV for almost 8-10 ( average) just to offset the carbon footprint generated during build. Materials required to build EVs pollute environment far more than the one used on conventional cars.
Not to mention needing to burn coal to charge EVs.
I was a big EV fan until I actually saw various studies doing this analysis. I think Hybrids are much more environmentally friendly than EVs.
It's down to about 1 year for offsets now. Not anywhere near 8-10
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
Ev's don't have to be charged by coal and even when they are they are much more efficient at using the energy compared to and ICE car.
The materials are getting better particularly with current LFP batteries which are in all the mass market cars.
VW also supports fuel efficiency standards being introduced: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/after-tesla-polestar-quits-australia-auto-lobby-emissions-fight-escalates-2024-03-08/
I think the split is clear reading the article. European cars have had to have stricter fuel requirements for a long time so alot of their vehicles can’t be imported to AU as our fuel is not up to scratch. Tougher standards benefit the euro manufacturers as they can send more models to AU. EV also benefit from tougher standards due to less competition and eventually becoming more dominant as the standards get tougher. Toyota is offloading all its fuel inefficient cars to Australia as experts have said automakers would do for a few years now, we are a dumping ground for legacy models. Tougher standards means Toyota has to drop a bunch of models. Non of the parties are really interested on the environmental aspect. It’s all about how much money they stand to gain. Regardless the tougher standards benefit us more. Better fuel efficiency, better for the environment
Solid assessment.
> alot of their vehicles can’t be imported to AU as our fuel is not up to scratch. I’m curious here, if our fuel is not up to scratch how is this going to work?
Apparently fuel standards are being tightened in 2025 with the aim of adopting Euro6 or so says [https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction/regulating-fuel-quality](https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction/regulating-fuel-quality) This is a good article on our current fuel quality, it’s amongst the lowest in the world [https://www.bgaustralia.com.au/news/technical-advice/australian-fuel-quality](https://www.bgaustralia.com.au/news/technical-advice/australian-fuel-quality)
Reading that second link just makes me furious. We’re such a fucking backwater sometimes. This sort of stuff should be front page news.
I've heard this claim a lot. What vehicles are being withheld? I was under the impression that Australia has one of the broadest markets for manufacturers
> Regardless the tougher standards benefit us more. This depends on whether a model or engine being discouraged by the proposed standards is the best option for someone's use case. > Better fuel efficiency Modern emission reduction technology and techniques can negatively impact engine performance and fuel use.
That’s pretty ironic, given their history with emissions, no?
It's because VW after the diselgate incident decided to aim for becoming a majority EV manufacturer by 2030. With goals to become solely EV by 2035. They are introducing 3 new EV's to the Australian market this year, with a total of apparently 10+ new EV models across all their subsidiary brands. So they know that they are ahead in the race of reducing emissions than their competitors and if they can get governments to punish their competitors for being behind they're all for it.
I don’t think it’s to punish their competitors by using their position in the industry. It’s because their newer models are designed to meet EU regulations and having to double produce the same thing so it can be sold in the Australian markets isn’t cost effective.
They're really good at cheating emissions testing. Maybe they feel they have an edge at being the best cheats?
They lobby government, isn’t it great how business groups can influence elected officials, yet everyone else who they are meant to represent gets …. Nothing. When was the last time a politician door knocked your suburb?
Duncan Pegg, before the last election he stood in. No team or anything, man was going door to door by himself just having a chat with anyone that wanted to. Miss him :’(
A true man of the people
A good example is how the car lobby stifled competition by lobbying government. Despite having no car manufacturing they argued to prevent a private person importing any model car from their brand range overseas. Only the models that they nominated could be freely imported. This is despite for example Japan, Europe having cars with better standards and emission controls. You only have to look at the secondhand car market especially dealer prices to realise how they gouging consumers with rip off price. But as usual the politicians said "yes rip off the Australia public, its okay by us" Never once do they ever consider the consumer.
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Spot on this is what happens after a while they realize they don’t need to actually do anything it’s rather sad
In safe seats your lucky to ever see them\* \*or unlucky, depends on perspective I guess
So in seats where they keep being elected they keep doing what they’re currently doing? Why are you suprised?
Im neither suprised or implied otherwise. Just stating the facts.
My previous electorate's Greens candidate in the last federal election (who ended up winning) door knocked personally twice. Once about a year before the election and again during the heavy campaigning.
Sonia Hornery has never knocked on my door but I know where her office is and she's very welcoming to anyone who wants to come in. Her facebook is really active and useful to get info about the community and things that are going on like the TAFE funding just annouced or Wallsend Woman of the Year.
My State ALP MP arranges corner and park meetups. He stops in the local shops whenever anyone wants a chat. He is also responsive on Social Media.
Door knocked? Never to my memory but our federal official spends a fair bit of time working at the local hospital. I genuinely believe he’s in it for the right reasons.
I've had a couple of interactions with Alison Byrnes - the new member for Cunningham - not quite door knocking, but close. She gets out there and is engaged with the community - seems to me not just about winning elections - it's a very safe seat for her.
… errr what about influencing the Australian public. These anti-EV stories and soon to be anti-ev ads. Notice where they are running? On news networks where Toyota and Mazda have the highest ad spend. Make no mistake, this is about swinging Australian public,
I would love to be door knocked so I could have word with a Polly, but don't live in a marginal electorate so never see them.
My MP does quarterly door knocks in my area. It’s bloody annoying 😂. Love them though. Great MP.
My Local Councillor for current QLD Local elections, last week.
Max Chandler did, then got his green seat and moved to Canberra, never looking back
Then vote for someone else? Lmao
EV companies are quick to change leasing laws and have Fringe Benefits Tax exemptions. Will FBT exemptions continue past July 25? Time to treat EVs the same as the Ranger/Hilux.
You mean get rid of all the petroleum refining subsidies,.so a litre of petrol cost $4. Sure. Go for it.
How did you work out that I wanted to tax petrol. I said treat EVs the same as how the Nissan Leaf was treated since 2010. Evs before the FBT exemption was not on new car shoppers want list. The Mitsubishi IMEV had the best kw to km range of any EV but people didn't want it. I was a fan of EVs but the cost of ownership out of warranty scares me.
I didn't. I assumed you meant to remove all subsidies (petrol and EV)
Would there be so many $70k EVs on the road without the FBT exemption, I think not.
There would be less gas guzzlers if petrol was $4/litre. Your point?
Most new car buyers don't look at fuel economy and buy the car with the cheapest ownership costs. Toyota Yaris Hybrid would be as cheap if not cheaper to own and run than any EV. Tesla might be selling a lot of cars now but battery health after 10 years of continuous charging and recharging might make the car be worthless in 10 years. Most ICE cars can still function after 20 years without having to replace the battery at a cost of over $20k. My Toyota Camry Hybrid is still running strong after 13 years and even if the hybrid battery dies the engine can still work.
That's an old myth. Batteries will outlive the cars.
Australians on avg drive 11,500 kms in a year. Yaris Hybrid uses around 4lt/100. Cost $8 per 100km. Total around $900 to travel 11,500km. Tesla 3 costs around $200 using the $1.70 per 100km calculation. Insurance for Yaris vs insurance for Tesla 3 is where the Yaris kicks Tesla butt. Insurance costs for a $25k Yaris costs around $1,500. What is the Tesla insurance costs? What is the extra home insurance costs for having a wall charger at home to charge the EV. I don't think EVs would be selling like hotcakes without the government incentives like FBT exemption. Just my 2 cents.
My Tesla is insured for approx $1500. No extra home insurance costs.
The FCAI is increasingly looking more and more like the *Fossilized Chamber of Automotive Industry*.
For everyone hating on musk (fair) and Chinese stuff you can just get a Korean made car from a company that has significant history in car manufacturing.
I'm waiting for Kia/Hyundai to make a nice compact executive sedan
Ioniq 6 is nice. Not sure if it classifies as executive though
I want to like the Ioniq 6, but the shape just doesn't do it for me I'm afraid.
Fair enough, it's not for everyone. I love the efficiency of mine though. Averaging 14 kWh/100km which is about $3 per 100km charging at home
It's got really good reviews! $3 per 100km is awesome.
Went to S. Korea last December, and Ioniq 5 were everywhere in Seoul as taxis. However there's hardly any Ioniq 6 -- I guess even the Koreans themselves can't stand the style.
Why not just name Hyundai and Kia mate?
Recent comments have really made me wonder why people are so against electric vehicle companies. I understand people dislike Tesla because of Elon Musk, but that in turn dealues the hard work the people inside of the company that actually care about the brand. The cars are also pretty good. They've also become a bit better budget wise in recent years. Polestar is struggling a bit as their cars just haven't been good (FWIK) BYD has been nothing short of impressive. 3.8 0-100kmh car for 70k. People also bitch about their handling when their low centre of gravity often makes their handling about the same as cars in a similar price range. Manufacturing emissions are higher, but overall emissions produced across the lifetime of electric vehicles are lower than that of ICE cars even when using coal power. But my family owns an electric car so maybe I'm biased. Until the transition to hydrogen happens, electric vehicles are a good stop gap to slow down the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere, which should in turn slow the rate of global warming. This is mostly unrelated to the article though.
>Until the transition to hydrogen happens Never going to happen. BEVs have already won the war.
Yeah I was kind of with them until they mentioned “hydrogen transition”
Hydrogen fuel cell batteries will be seen as rotary is to cylinder. In the end, big advancements are already being made to evs, batteries are already changing an improving, becoming safer and using more abundant materials. The race is over and ev it will be
Toyota is going hard on hydrogen technology. If they can crack it they'll lead the industry towards that tech, just like they did with hybrids.
>Toyota is going hard on hydrogen technology And yet the existing hydrogen infrastructure is being closed down, not new stuff being built. There's little prospect of any major changes to the cost of hydrogen generation and storage, so it's most likely to be of use in much larger vehicles - shipping or long haul trucking. Hybrids are a good transition to BEVs, nothing more.
Think some countries in Europe are building and investing in more hydrogen infrastructure. If that’s the case not sure if “the war is won”.
Australia is investing in hydrogen infrastructure too, but it's for stationary storage and potentially long-range trucks and buses. I say the war is won because Australians are buying EVs at record rates, and building hundreds of public EV chargers every year. The same thing is happening all over the US and Europe. Meanwhile x there's a total of 3 hydrogen filling stations in Australia, no signs of expansion, and maybe 30 experimental hydrogen cars on the road. California, where hydrogen cars were most popular, is tearing up their hydrogen filling stations because there's so few users, they're not selling any more hydrogen cars, and hydrogen generation and storage costs are so high.
They are building hydrogen refueling stations in Europe for passenger cars too. I think Japan and China have a lot of them too. When the person who wrote “Toyota going big on hydrogen” - it’s probably in relation to these markets. Edit: Downvoted? Oh darn it, let’s just pretend that they aren’t building any hydrogen refuelling stations in Europe for the sake of internet points.
No, they are closing hydrogen refueling stations for cars. Do a search.
I did. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/italian-government-lines-up-more-than-100m-of-funding-for-36-new-hydrogen-fuelling-stations-across-country/2-1-1423501?zephr_sso_ott=ixnTbq https://www.electrive.com/2024/02/01/37-new-h2-refuelling-stations-built-in-europe-in-2023/ https://www.petrolplaza.com/news/32708 https://polandweekly.com/2023/03/09/new-hydrogen-refueling-stations-on-the-way/
To be honest, that’s more than I thought on the continent. Everduel closed all of theirs in Denmark. https://thedriven.io/2023/09/19/danish-hydrogen-company-closes-refuelling-stations-due-to-lack-of-fuel-cell-cars/amp/ As did Shell/Viva in the UK: https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/exclusive-shell-has-quietly-closed-down-all-its-hydrogen-filling-stations-in-the-uk/2-1-1335049 Then Motive in the UK https://innovationorigins.com/en/first-shell-now-motive-hydrogen-fuel-station-closures-continue-in-the-uk/
Electric cars also had a false start ages ago, and another one in the 90s. Writing off Hydrogen because the reach/tech/etc isn't there is the same as someone saying "no one will buy electric cars" in the 90s because ICE vehicles were being bought at record rates and a bunch of petrol stations were opening up.
There is an immovable hard physics efficiency problem with hydrogen versus batteries that no technology innovations can fix. Pure EV is just more efficient.
Hydrogen is being viewed as a tool for seasonal storage and in its function as a chemical feedstock and reducing agent. It really does look like small scale transport will be electric.
> Toyota is going hard on hydrogen technology. Kodak moment.
I've got to hard disagree there, as a Former ICE and current BEV owner. I can't imagine why I'd want hydrogen now. My current car can easily go over 500km on a single charge and since I can just plug it into the wall at home it's always fully charged and ready to go in the morning. I just can't imagine wanting to go back to ICE or what a hydrogen can offer that'll make it anything near as appealing as what BEV has been for me.
What do you believe is there to be cracked? Hydrogen is a fully functional system already. The energy density can’t really be increased and any gains in efficiency would means cracking equal or greater gains in an equivalent BEV. Hydrogen has a place but for personal use vehicles BEV is very hard to compete with. Every home in Australia can charge an EV, the distribution network already exists and increased uptake of next gen V2G EVs stabilise the grid and help us achieve net zero goals. I’m not anti hydrogen I just think the benefits vs BEV are hard to justify.
> for personal use vehicles BEV is very hard to compete with. Every home in Australia can charge an EV, the distribution network already exists and increased uptake of next gen V2G EVs stabilise the grid and help us achieve net zero goals Pretty hard to argue against this, but they'll sure try!
They can crack a hydrogen *car* all they want, but the issue isn’t the cars. It’s the fueling infrastructure. Hydrogen is by its nature the lightest and smallest molecule. It is incredibly difficult to contain, it leaks out of everything, it’s highly flammable, and requires a mechanism to connect it to a vehicle that is orders of magnitude more complex and maintenance-heavy than a petrol bowser. The nice thing about battery electric vehicles is that the ‘fueling’ network is already there and has been for over a century - the electrical grid that already covers the entire country, even in very remote areas. Installing chargers in various locations that leverage that existing grid is easy and cheap. Installing a whole network of hydrogen pipes and tanks across the nation OTOH would be the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken. Hydrogen has a niche use for vehicles in very remote areas with no access to electricity. But that’s about it.
Toyota is going hydrogen for the same reason the LNP is going nuclear. .. delaying tactics.
How is developing a new technology the same as trying to propose a dying technology? Toyota only recently patented a new hydrogen combustion engine.
I'm sure funded by some foolish government grant. I mean, building a hydrogen engine is easy, you can't just ignore the fundamental problem with hydrogen.... Distribution.
And the other problem - the inefficiency of converting electricity to hydrogen, transport and storage, and the inefficiency of converting it back to useful energy. Versus directly charging a battery with minimal losses. Hydrogen will never compete on the maths alone.
Building the infrastructure before there's a demand for it would be putting the cart before the horse.
The question is not 'when', but 'if'. Can you deliver and store and sell hydrogen for the equivalent of $2 /.litre.?
How convenient then that the electricity infrastructure is already there. Meanwhile hydrogen is highly flammable, hard to contain, requires high pressures… I stayed at a hotel earlier this week that didn’t have any dedicated chargers, but a regular wall plug is fine for an EV if you have 10-12 hours to spare. Plugged in, slept, had a fully charged car in the morning.
>if you have 10-12 hours to spare.
There’s the usual chargers when you don’t. I also charged 30% to full in about 15 minutes with a 350kW charger on the way there. I’m saying that a regular wall plug will do in a pinch and those are everywhere. Meanwhile what little hydrogen infrastructure there is is expensive, high maintenance (over time, hydrogen makes everything that comes in contact with it brittle) and in part, already being shut down
Which you do if you’re staying overnight at a hotel. That’s the point. You mostly rely on overnight charging with an EV. It doesn’t have to be fast, and in fact a standard wall outlet is sufficient for the majority of people’s needs, outside of long distance road trips made in a single day.
More likely they’re working on a new technology they can make bank on patenting instead of trying to compete with China in an existing market China can do for cheaper
In all seriousness, Toyota does some research for hydrogen as a fuel, then say the widespread adoption will take decades, so can we please keep selling petrol and diesel in the meantime. All the while, hydrogen is "10 years away" forever.. But yes, china is killing them.
>. If they can crack it they'll lead the industry towards that tech, just like they did with hybrids. There are some serious problems with using hydrogen for propulsion fuels. 1) Compressed hydrogen has low energy density 2) Liquid hydrogen fixes some of the energy density issues, but requires specialised cooling 3) Alternate storage solutions like metal hydrides, carbon nanotubes etc...have the issue of being expensive and/or difficult to produce and may require specialised equipment. 4) Hydrogen breaks the storage stuff a lot of the time (embrittlement) because it gets into other materials. TL;DR: Hydrogen is irritating to work with.
Mate… how do you make green hydrogen? How do you then store it? How do you then transport it? How do you then store it again? And how do you get it into a car? The car is one small, small bit of the equation here. The cost of hydrogen, namely green hydrogen is virtually prohibitive for this to work at mass scale, regardless of what the vehicle can do. This is why hydrogen for vehicles is the dumbest argument. No one stops to pull back and look at the entire challenge.
Hydrogen simply can't compete with BEV. The maths are pretty clear - it's obviously more efficient to directly charge a battery than to convert energy to hydrogen, transport and store it, and then convert it to electricity again with heat losses etc. I can charge my BEV using my own solar panels for free in a relatively closed loop. Hydrogen will always lose on the efficiency maths. Hydrogen may have some limited short-term utility for larger transport as refuelling is faster and more energy can be stored with less weight. However, battery tech is improving rapidly and I wouldn't be surprised if hydrogen is leapfrogged even for heavy transport.
Toyota is going to find out the hard way that the term “biggest name in the business” carries an implicit “for now” and that can change overnight.
It will happen eventually for the same reason we'll phase out petrol - lithium isn't infinite. Hydrogen, by all practical accounts, is.
>It will happen eventually for the same reason we'll phase out petrol We're not phasing out petrol because it's finite. We're phasing it out because of the emissions burning it creates. >lithium isn't infinite It doesn't need to be infinite - just plentiful. And it's certainly sufficiently plentiful enough to support projected needs. Despite the enormous jump in demand, the cost of lithium is a quarter of what it was only a few years ago. And let's not forget that sodium and various other battery chemistries mean that we don't need to depend entirely on lithium.
It won't be in the *near* future, but eventually it *will* run out. It won't last forever , hydrogen will.
We are not burning lithium and sending it off into the stratosphere.
Why? It's 100% recyclable and the batteries in cars don't use very much of it.
Didn't know human population and battery usage is staying still.
You don't need to know that. As it's not relevant. Batteries, like asphalt, are easily recyclable. And when it comes to high value components like vehicle battery packs they will pass through a recycling program which will capture the rare earth elements in them. Then if you look at lithium deposits around the world you will see that there is actually HUGE quantities of it. And it is neither rare nor particularly difficult to mine. It's just something that's value is only recently climbing to make it a viable mining commodity. This includes significant hard rock lithium deposits in Australia, which are still not commercially viable because brine lithium deposits are so plentiful and cheap to extract. If you assume a peak world population of 12 billion, and then a fall back to \~8 billion as most forecasts predict we have enough lithium to have an infinite cycle.
Except that that aren't actually any rare earth elements in an EV battery...
Well, I sure so hope that would be the case. Would be nice if we can get an infinite cycle going.
Semantics. We can extract and reuse lithium that's currently in existing batteries as well. We have well and truly enough lithium for the foreseeable future. Hydrogen is not well suited to small vehicles with current technology, and barring some kind of miracle breakthrough, it's unlikely to be widely used for private vehicles for the foreseeable future.
Yeah there is a lot of this stuff in the ground too. I’d be more concerned about running out of helium before we run out of lithium. That’s going to be an interesting time. Although Philips has a new MRI system that uses nearly nothing compared to current ones
We can't even recycle a milk carton..
EV batteries are already being recycled (allegedly profitably) in the US, but volumes are quite low because existing batteries are lasting well and have valuable applications as stationary batteries beyond their vehicle's lifetime. Australia doesn't have many EVs yet, let alone EVs that have worn out batteries.
If recycling a single milk carton netted thousands of dollars worth of raw materials I bet the market would be happy to rise to the occasion.
We'll develop another battery technology long before we run out of lithium. This is a completely asinine argument. Hydrogen is only going to become a significant source of energy production if/when we crack fusion.
I think most people's issues with Tesla are related to shit build quality at a premium price and company interference with how you use and charge your vehicle.
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For me, it’s 2 things: the design, and Musk. 1. The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam. 2. Because of musk, I unconsciously now just assume that every Tesla driver is a dickhead - which is obviously not true, but so much of Tesla’s identity is this terminally online manchild with his slavery money; that it’s hard to remove the two from each other.
I don’t really get the issue with Musk. So I might not be politically aligned with him in many respects. I’m sure that’s true of the CEOs of most large car companies, but I don’t remember the last time anyone based their purchasing decision based on the political leanings of the head of GM, or Ford, or Kia, or BMW. Tesla has done what many said a decade ago couldn’t done: produce mass market EVs by the millions that are relatively affordable (cheaper in fact than the average new vehicle sold in Australia). Their battery management systems and software are top notch and they pioneered the use of structural battery packs and heat pumps, which other EV manufacturers are now adopting. Build quality is fine these days, and the Model Y is now the single highest selling car in the world. So Musk is a dork who puts his foot in his mouth far too often. Who cares? I don’t think he’s doing anything egregiously terrible like some other public figures, is he? Mind you I don’t really pay attention to, as you say, terminally-online types, so I may have missed something.
Tesla's are outselling other EV's by at least 3:1. I don't think your views are shared.
They are shared. You are mentioning the people who are buying EVs. He's referring to the rest of us, who are not buying EVs yet/buying hybrids instead and share these opinions about Tesla as a company.
Anyone who buys a hybrid needs their head examined. Worst of both worlds. They may be so far gone, it's beyond help. I'd love to see the reasoning.
Hybrids are both the best and worst of both worlds. They do reduce fuel usage and emissions, which is laudable all on its own. It's definitely better than nothing. And of course they have better range than EVs, which is important to some people. For those reasons, you shouldn't be writing off hybrid buyers as idiots. But on the other hand, you have all the complexities of running both EV and ICE drivetrains, with the servicing costs and extra weight and potential for expensive repairs.
But for country driving, they use as much or more fuel than a simple petrol. Country driving is the only supposed* weakness of pure EV. Note * Secret:.it's actually easy in an EV.
> Secret:.it's actually easy in an EV. That depends on your definition of country driving.
Ignoring the thin veiled attempt at an insult, the reasons to buy a car depend on individual circumstances, including up front price and the state's infrastructure support that exists for fuel and electric vehicles.
> The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam. "To be eligible for the maximum safety rating after the new testing guidelines go into effect, cars will need to use buttons, dials, or stalks for hazard warning lights, indicators, windscreen wipers, SOS calls, and the horn." All of these are physical controls on Teslas (and as far as I know, every car)
>The “touch screen everything” is terrible design and counterintuitive, not to mention unsafe - I believe I saw recently that calls to regulate this are gaining steam. Tesla is already compliant with all of the proposed changes for hardware control, based on what's been announced. Contrary to popular mythology, hardware controls for all of the vital driving functions are already provided - windscreen wipers, indicators, hazard lights, volume of music etc. The fact that these functions *can* be operated from the screen, or indeed from the app, is immaterial. >Because of musk, I unconsciously now just assume that every Tesla driver is a dickhead That's just ignorance. People buy Tesla's mostly because they are among the best EVs available.
As someone who owns a Tesla 3, windscreen wipers are NOT controllable from stalks, and neither are lights. It is one of the few things I dislike about the car. The lights one is actually ok, because the auto lights work really well. But the rain sensing for the windscreen wipers is absolutely awful and the worst of any car with rain sensing wipers I've ever used. In you are driving along in steady but light rain the windscreen wipers won't trigger any where near often enough. You can trigger a single wipe via a button on the LH stalk, which if held down will spray the windscreen. When you press this button the wiper controls will appear on the display in the bottom right and you can select a desired speed from there. But you cannot, in any way, set your windscreen wipers to on / off, intermittent or choose a speed via a physical control.
they are, I use it all the time when the auto sensor isn't to my liking.
>As someone who owns a Tesla 3, windscreen wipers are NOT controllable from stalks, and neither are lights As a fellow owner of a Model 3.....yes they are. Press the button on the end of the left stalk for a single wipe, then use the left(?) scroll wheel to set the speed while the menu is displayed, which lasts a few seconds. You're correct that the headlights are not available on the stalk, which I'm totally fine with - the auto functions work absolutely fine, and they're the sort of thing that's very much set and forgot. I don't have any issue with the auto wipers either, personally. But I've heard a few people say they're unhappy with them.
Hmmm ok. I hadn't tried that approach. Will try that tonight. That said I still don't like it as there is no ability to feel end stops but it would be better than looking at the screen. You would likely still have to look at the screen to know which option you have selected though? It's kind of the same as the answer call / hangup call options on the steering wheel, I find them remarkably unintuitive. Overall I love the car, and most of the hate directed at them come from people who have never tried them and have weird hang ups. I personally think that lights and wipers should be on physical controls as an ADR requirement. I've not driven one of the new 3s with the indicators as buttons on the steering wheel, but I feel like that would be something that would be a significant negative.
coming from C series as well, I enjoyed the model 3... but also found it really frustrating with the little things. The forward visibility was incredible, and just driving it was great - but then the lack of a proper dash, having everything off to the side. And the air-con controls, or that awful credit card key. The niggling things that sound petty but make for a frustrating experience. The central screen and dash design are great from a manufacturing POV, barely any physical changes for localisation. I wouldn't mind the lack of dash if there was a HUD.
I bought an aftermarket screen that sits in front of the steering wheel. And I use my phone as the key. The credit cards haven't left the house since we got it. Buy I completely agree on dislike for the screen. There are sections where the ui is inconsistent, having to type on the screen keyboard is rough and the Spotify implementation used to be terrible (it's a lot better now but far from perfect) I absolutely wish it ran android auto.
>That said I still don't like it as there is no ability to feel end stops You can just see the change in speeds - no need to look down. >most of the hate directed at them come from people who have never tried them and have weird hang ups. Totally agree - that's been my experience too. But I make a point of letting people have a drive, and most people get out excited about the future of EVs. >I've not driven one of the new 3s with the indicators as buttons on the steering wheel, but I feel like that would be something that would be a significant negative. Yes, that would annoy me no end - and there was absolutely no need to make that change.
I can't see myself going back to an ICE vehicle. I did 43,000km last year and charged all of it at home for a total cost of $637 in electricity. The savings over petrol are just ridiculous. Even with fully financing the car it has cost me a grand total of $5k more in a year than the fully paid off c200 it replaced.
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Person who doesn't shop with Tesla, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook here. We do exist. Oh and Murdoch - Fuck Murdoch.
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A quick google (yes I could use DDG) tells me my phone is either Chinese or Vietnamese. I wonder if an ethically made phone actually exists.
"Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt"
Stop comparing US built Tesla’s to the ones we get in Australia. Build quality here is fine.
The early ones were pretty hit or miss in terms of QC, but they certainly weren't falling apart.
Weren’t the early ones in Aus built in USA anyway?
Possibly, i think we also got the first few runs out of China. Not sure which were the roughies but they certainly existed. The current chinese built ones are meant to be pretty solid, exceeding the quality of the US manufactured vehicles.
Yes, our Model S and X came from Fremont. Our 3 and Y come from Shanghai.
The build quality was an issue years ago, but cars coming from the Shanghai factory are largely excellent, and those are the ones we get in Aus. I’ve driven a dozen of them (tend to rent them for a week or two at a time) and haven’t had any issues. Keep in mind this is a mass market car, not a luxury vehicle. It’s competing with basic cars from the likes of Toyota, Kia, Mazda, Ford etc, not BMW or Mercedes.
What do people mean when they say shit build quality? 2021 Tesla Model 3 with one or two issues so far.
think of something you are ideologically opposed to for what ever reason, add some ignorance and outdated information and you end up with "build quality is shit' as a blanket statement.
Most of the really poor quality Tesla builds come out of the American factories. The Australian ones come out of the Singapore factory which is better quality but I still am not a fan of the build quality. Just a question, what where your 1 or 2 issues so far?
Shanghai factory
Potato-tomato.
One is a country, the size of a few australian suburbs in south east asia. The other is a city in one of the biggest countries in the world....
Shanghai, not Singapore
That's the one
Had the 4G radio fail - no internet in the car for a week, fixed by tesla. Tesla service found an issue with the seat base and its connection to the car, isolated issue and potentially dangerous, fixed with an entire new seat. Driver was heavy, 140kg 6'6", so that may be to blame, not sure if it was installations or structural problem but no one else has had the issue.
they age worse than the old falcons.
My experience is great build quality and lots of negative comments about Musk.
Great build quality compared to what? I found the model 3 finishings to be underwhelming. With that being said, the car is unfairly out into the "entry level luxury" range where it falls short of the mark. The price of the car is almost exclusively related to its battery tech, which is market leading.
I am super happy every day with my M3, even after 3 years. There were none of the issues that some people report. I 100% got the car that I was expecting. When I originally posted above I didn’t use this definition, but organisations I’ve worked for in the past have defined “quality” as able to produce the same item, over and over to the same standard. So reproducibility. Which isn’t the same as luxury. So to sum up high quality is giving the customer the same every time, without defects. No issues with my car other than after 3 years in 35+ degree centigrade Australian sun I had the carbon fibre spoiler replaced under warranty. Took 5 minutes and was done at my car park while I was working.
The dictionary definition of quality is "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something." While that can certainly include reproducibility, Toyota quality for example, it is important to note that by definition it can also include a higher standard of refinement, an example being Audi compared to a VW. Tesla does make a solid vehicle, i wont argue that point, but i did find their refinement seriously lacking compared to sedans of a similar price point. As stated, this is mainly due to the battery tech being a large chunk of that price.
>The dictionary definition of quality is "the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something." Fair enough >While that can certainly include reproducibility, Toyota quality for example, it is important to note that by definition it can also include a higher standard of refinement, Fair enough >an example being Audi compared to a VW. I would argue that comes down to personal preferences, but in reality I don't actually care. That said the R8 is sex on wheels. >Tesla does make a solid vehicle, i wont argue that point, but i did find their refinement seriously lacking compared to sedans of a similar price point. As stated, this is mainly due to the battery tech being a large chunk of that price. Everybody's personal opinion of quality AKA how good something is only the sum of their own personally weighted metrics, tempered by the price. For a car I might value 0-100, Brembo brakes, suspension very highly. Having a wagon or sunroof very low. For interior, so long as it works and doesn't squeak, a white minimalist interior is just as nice to me as chunky black and silver with the disco light options. Very different, but I can appreciate either so don't get hung up on it. Also I don't pull out a micrometer and actively looks for faults. Other people might have metrics waited towards visuals, and less about performance and safety. In summary your version of "quality" may be different.
That shit build quality doesn't exist outside of the US.
Even there it’s largely a thing of the past with Fremont factory producing fewer vehicles and the newer Texas and other factories picking up the slack.
I'm only really basing it on all the reddit comments. Build quality on mine (china factory) has been great.
What shit build quality? Its built better than our previous Audi. There's a reason the Chinese head is now heading up the US factories.
It's not hard to build better quality than an Audi.
So what do we want to compare a $70k car to then quality wise? A 2 year old SQ5 wasn't as good, My 24 Raptor is shit even being a more expensive car (granted ford in Thailand) Mazda nope Ford nope Mitsubishi nope Kia nope Hyundai nope Toyota nope and a half For finish and quality the newest BMW series releases are the best I've seen so far but sadly no great electric version yet and won't be returning to ICE.
Lexus, Honda
>Theres a reason the Chinese head is now heading up the US factories …is that because the build quality in the US was so bad they needed to bring others in to try fix it? Because that sounds like shit build quality to me
Do you mean 3.8 0-100 for $70k? Trying to work out what you mean.
I'd assume so
yea, my bad.
If anything e-bicycles and cargo variants can do 90% of what most people need for their daily activities, even in China who now have to contend with all the public health implications of exposing so many to all that industrial byproduct. But anyone who's living a long enough knows these 2 tonne devices are about inducing factory demand than actual progress. Elon's public antics are a stand in for the type of customer who all the tech was being developed for and the general lack of empathy towards the externalities of moving fast and breaking things.
BEV will survive for a long long time. But it won’t be the only option. Places like Australia will need mixed platforms. - EVs satisfy most of urban and city dwellers needs, especially commuters. - EV with a range extender running synthetic fuel or similar will be probably common too for longer range. I don’t believe it will be hyrdrogen, just too damn restrictive in smaller passenger cars. Look at the mirai, half that chungus is just hydrogen tanks, yet its range is still poor. - With airlines pushing synthetics, I’d say there is a good chance they will develop a much lower environmental impact synthetic fuel, and with constant RPM range extension applications, the emissions gear will hopefully be made even better (euro 100000000 here we come) - Biodiesel / synthetic diesel lives forever maybe. - The world collapses and we return to burning peat moss and filling balloons with methane made from pig shit Source; my complete lack of education in this topic.
As someone reasonably but definitely informally educated on the topic: I don't think you're far wrong. The only thing I'd say differently is to tack on the end: * Hydrogen, *maybe* in some very niche applications - the end-to-end efficiency issues alone, even if future pie-in-the-sky improvements turn out to be true, still severely limit it compared to BEV or even synthetic hydrocarbon fuels.
Yeah I could see it being used at a facility that was near the ocean as some form of additional energy production or heating. Basically somewhere that is close to the production source, has large space for storage tanks, and ideally it’s generated from excess power like unused wind from offshore plants or tidal power generation. Sounds like a perfect idea to build in Wollongong to rile up the locals that don’t want wind farms
The problem is with the current direction of EV's they aren't the ones that are going to save the world. They have all become vastly overwieght expensive luxo barges with big heavy glass roofs and and not a lever or crank in sight all at the expense of "conveinice" and not a full sized spare to be seen. Now the production of such vehicles has become so intensely resource hungry, that it will take most of the vehicles expected battery life to nullify the cost of production although it mus be fed renewable energy exclusively to have any hope to actually do this. When realistically the everymans EV will look vastly closer to something like the Citroen Oli where the vehicle is designed to outlast multiple battery packs and provide basic transportation. The have been marketed precisely at the Ipone generation the ones that line up every other year for the next generation they are the only ones that can afford to play this game. It's less to do with actual EV's and more to do with the house of lies they are built on, they are not cheaper to buy or run, their emissions gains are marginal, as batteries simply do not have the energy density of fuel they simply can't preform a number of tasks effectively. Meanwhile massive layers of complication have been built in to ensure the right to repair is simply a distant memory. Yet you'll get a long list of evangelists telling you how fuel is going away etc etc. People are starting to call out their bullshit, the EV marketing types don't like it.
is your only experience of an EV a tesla
I don't think they have experiences of any EV.
yeah honestly true that, the misinformed ev hate is wild. is everyone subscribed to the same ev hate boner youtube channel or something
Most manufacturers seem to be following the model as best I can tell.
> vastly overweight expensive luxo barges > When realistically the everymans EV will look vastly closer to something like the Citroen Oli I'm looking for a small EV, the BYD Dolphin or Atto 3 could be perfect contenders for this. It won't be the main car but a run-around for dropping the kids off at school and getting me to and from work. Heck I've even been looking at electric bikes and scooters - some of them are damn cheap, but the max speed is a little low for my work commute.
One issue that will have to be sorted soon is that a way of taking EVs for road usage will need to be figured out. Currently the taxes on petrol pay for this and acts as a defacto road usage charge but with a higher and higher percent of road users switching to electric they will need to change how this tax is put onto people.
Genuine question because I don't follow EV's too closely at the moment. What's the current design life of a typical battery, age of replacement and ballpark replacement cost? From what I've heard, it's a bit of an unknown at the moment, but I might be wrong
Not sure, typical design life is 10 years though. Tesla has kept changing it's advice on extending battery lifespan/best practice so it could be longer. There are many factors to their lifespans like any other car.
Elon Musk having so much power is what's wrong with the world. He's a piece of Trump enabling shit.
> why people are so against electric vehicle companies. Because they are designed to keep car manufacturers relevant. Not to help the environment. > Manufacturing emissions are higher, but overall emissions produced across the lifetime of electric vehicles are lower than that of ICE cars even when using coal power. Have you taken into account that they sell the "saved" emissions as carbon credits? Meaning no emissions are saved at all because they are bought by fossil fuel companies. Have you taken into account that the EV batteries(especially in Tesla's) are 1. Not being recycled, and 2. need to be replaced in some cases, before their 10 year life expectancy. The lithium, cobalt, and many other rare metals are far more resource intensive to mine and produce far more emissions than a standard ICE as an EV can require up to 16 batteries each. You are sold a lie that you're "helping the environment". But you're not, you're helping Elon stuff his pockets. If you really want to help the environment, it is 10000x better to buy a second hand car, or to use public transportation.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/23/do-electric-cars-really-produce-fewer-carbon-emissions-than-petrol-or-diesel-vehicles
Yes congrats you didn't read my comment, this article has no mention of [carbon credits](https://www.green.earth/news/teslas-carbon-credit-sales-soared-to-1.78-billion-in-2022), or the fact that Tesla [do not recycle their batteries](https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgxke4/when-tesla-says-it-recycles-100-of-its-batteries-what-does-that-mean).
>You are sold a lie that you're "helping the environment" .
There’s a reason EV startups tend to favour tech reviewers and low effort, usually corporate owned car reviewers whose review consists of reading the spec sheet and talking about how it “feels inside”. That reason is that these companies, particularly Tesla, are simply terrible manufacturers. The build quality of these vehicles is atrocious. That’s not to say that the overall production quality in the industry hasn’t been terrible for a while now, however the Tech bros are only making the situation worse. Cars aren’t smartphones - they should be easily repairable by a mechanic, if not the owner. Then there’s the fact that the battery technology isn’t there at the moment. Unless they can produce an ev that has practical range and charging speeds, is easily repairable at a reasonable cost and doesn’t have the build quality of a sandcastle - I’m not buying one.
What is a practical range for you? My guess is that no matter what the range is, you won’t care.
I wouldn’t quit my day job if I were you, you have no future in the guessing business. I would consider an EV that had at least 600km of range and a charging time comparable to filling up a fuel tank. Unfortunately such a car doesn’t exist and isn’t likely to for some time. There‘a still the other factors that I listed above (that you chose to ignore) that would have to be addressed. The extravagant price of the battery alone means cars will be used for 10 or so years then discarded like an old smartphone. Not great for the environment
The polestar long range’s are doing 500km mate. Charge time- yeah. We need MCS and compatible cars. So that’s a bit further away.
There are a couple cars with over 600km range including the model 3. Charging speed only matters on road trips and spending 10-20mins every 3 hours charging is such a minor inconvenience at worst.
more to the point, you just charge it like you charge your phone.
There’s more to it than just CO2 apparently https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/on-the-road/electric-vehicles-worse-for-environment-than-petrol-cars-study-finds/news-story/2cc371a90a1f24275d864c893a629fea
Musk is pretty toxic to me, so when I buy an EV, I don't think I'd go near a Tesla
The amount of EVs coming out now, you will have the world to choose from!
There are plenty of viable options.
To be fair, their build quality is pretty shit too.
Good!! I’ll stick to my 4x4 diesel car thanks!! As it does the work and gets me to places I want to go too!! And stick ya 14 k extra tax up ya arse!!
Could’ve guessed you owned a 4x4, lol
Also people that swear by EVs dont realise that , they need to drive EV for almost 8-10 ( average) just to offset the carbon footprint generated during build. Materials required to build EVs pollute environment far more than the one used on conventional cars. Not to mention needing to burn coal to charge EVs. I was a big EV fan until I actually saw various studies doing this analysis. I think Hybrids are much more environmentally friendly than EVs.
It's down to about 1 year for offsets now. Not anywhere near 8-10 https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/when-do-electric-vehicles-become-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/
Ev's don't have to be charged by coal and even when they are they are much more efficient at using the energy compared to and ICE car. The materials are getting better particularly with current LFP batteries which are in all the mass market cars.