Adding God knows how much to your power bill each month. Sure if you do stuff all k's in your car it may be okay.I average 1200kms a week as a sales rep.Would motels and the like install power plugs? Hippies can have it.Give me gas any day.
kenw1,
Dec 23, 3:06am
There is a guy out at whangarei heads that has a Citroen self converted to EV I think he now also has a Leaf.
There are EV charge stations in Whangarei Kaiwaka and soon to be Dargaville.
Certainly here they are looking like an option.
bwg11,
Dec 23, 3:17am
At 24 cents a kW and $2.00 a litre, which planet?
bashfulbro,
Dec 23, 3:49am
I looked at one today, was a Nissan Leaf, lovely little car ,it takes only 10 minutes to fully charge.Has a range of 150 kms. Was told that, next year, all Z stations will have charging facilities, $ 5 to charge, and there will soon be a network of charging facilities, from top of North to bottom of South Islands ( or that is the eventual plan )
barrylarry,
Dec 23, 3:57am
$5 for 150kms isnt too bad. you'ld be lucky to get 40kms from that in petrol
As much as I love the petrol cars. I kinda like the idea of not throwing away money at the middle east, instead keeping the money in the local economy with local hydropower and whatnot. it could even be coal power, but at least its locally made and will provide jobs for local industry
bashfulbro,
Dec 23, 4:04am
The car dealer told me he is going to have charging facilities at his car yard, free, so i guess the costs cannot be too high, he was also talking like coffee shops, having a recharge and coffee deals , he also reckons he will bring more electric cars in, from Japan, he thinks they will sell OK. I don`t think i would buy one myself, but i may ask if i can test drive it when i go back, out of interest. All lights are LEDs, except the blinkers, I think this particular car is on Trade me, i`ll have a look.
barrylarry,
Dec 23, 4:08am
I dont think i would buy one either. they go for around 30k now. so any savings in fuel would be a moot point. I would be tempted if the second hand market reaches around 5k. I've never bought a brand new vehicle in my life. not as financially blessed as others haha
Until the time electric cars have 'one motor per tyre' there's effiency issues to overcome.
And one day, company's will offer you 'free electricity' in their carparks for your car, so you will go there to shop, or eat etc.
tamarillo,
Dec 23, 12:39pm
Can't wait. Instant torque, saving previous oil resources for my motorbike.
tgray,
Dec 23, 12:56pm
The only hard part would be spending $278,000 on one and then losing at the drag strip to a stock standard 2015 Corvette Stingray that cost a quarter of the price.
trackim,
Dec 23, 1:11pm
A Tesla wouldn't be too bad as long as they find a way to recharge it in a few minutes!
cammey,
Dec 23, 1:25pm
I wouldn't be worried about the power output.
Electric motors will have no problem what so ever out performing fossil fuel engines.
The issue simply remains the energy density of the fuel, with batteries and fuel cells, still lagging oil.
We will get there, and possibly sooner than many predict.
mals69,
Dec 23, 1:27pm
cc
What about an old kiwi backyard battery powered datsun giving a 2015 Corvette a run for its money - beating it over 1/8th and think even the 1/4 ? Was on Seven Sharp, if recall correctly the vett could only beat it when the drag was extended past the 1/4.
Even the performance of 1000 HP cars will be a joke when electric cars come on full song one day - think tesla cleaning them up already ?
tony9,
Dec 23, 1:42pm
Hmmm,
A litre of petrol contains 12 KWHr. Assuming 30% efficiency of a modern petrol engine, that gives you 4 KWHr per litre. Take duty and fuel tax off petrol and electricity is a bit more expensive. Road taxes will be added to electric vehicles in the future.
tgray,
Dec 23, 1:43pm
That day is not here yet.
mals69,
Dec 23, 1:52pm
In the future solar powered charging stations at home will see cheap running
mals69,
Dec 23, 1:54pm
Cannot be far away if an old electric datsun is beating a 2015 vette and a ferrari down the 1/4
kazbanz,
Dec 23, 2:03pm
What makes me laugh with most of the anti battery cars chest beaters is that they then hop in their cars and drive 15-30km per day. And a lot of that is in traffic. For that purpose a battery car is the most sensible solution. MY issue is the environmental issues involved in extracting the minerals the batteries need.
tony9,
Dec 23, 2:16pm
Do the math yourself. How many KWHr per day will you need to charge the car batteries? How much investment in solar panels will you need to do that (it will be $thousands). Don't forget to include RUCs at least expensive as diesel ones as ACC has to be paid and Roads have to be built and maintained.
Until petrol (and Diesel) is well over double what it is now, they will remain cheaper than harvesting solar energy in real time.
cammey,
Dec 23, 2:17pm
A kg of petrol is 12 kw/hr, thats about 1.25 litres, so you really need to work on around 8 kw/hr per litre.
30% is ok for engine efficiency, but petrol cars don't recover energy when braking, and burn energy when stationary or coasting.
You are possibly looking at 10% of the energy you purchased actually being used.
So that litre of petrol or diesel will give you around 0.8 kw/hr of real "transport energy."
Even for diesel, that's over $1 a kw/hr of "transport energy".
tony9,
May 9, 1:33pm
BTW, there is some hope for true hybrid solution in the near term. Not the ones around now, but ones that will harvest some of the waste heat in the IC engine, plus recover wasted kinetic energy from the vehicle. These could effectively recover 20% or more energy from the petroleum source and store it in a super capacitor to supplement the engine and/or run accessories.
F1 cars are doing some of this now.
All the energy to run the car will still come from dino fuel, but you will be using about 2-3 litres per 100 Km.
The Bolt is more about being a competitor to the upcoming Tesla Model 3 than it is about being 'better' than the Volt (hybrid). Check out the expected price tag: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a12983/35000-tesla-model-iii-coming-in-2017/ GM is just among the first of many automakers that can see the threat that increasing EV numbers are to their market share. Fossil fuel powered private cars are on the brink of an accelerating decline.
harm_less,
Jan 12, 7:45am
Go forward 5 years and the title of this thread may be better as "Why Would You Still Drive A Fossil Fuel Vehicle?"
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