Yes the possibility of "saving $900 a year" with what is a 2kW(peak) PV system is remote. Maximum efficiency, orientation, location and with a very high price of the imported power the generation offsets might just do it if ALL of the generated power is consumed, with none exported. The company advertising is just one of many whose business was kneecapped by the reduction of power company buy-back rates late last year. Any wonder that the "take up" of PV solar in NZ is lagging behind many developed countries.
Regarding the "very environmentally unfriendly costs of building electric cars" how does this compare to the amount of alloys used in current ICE engines and their drive trains, and of course that's apart from their ongoing emissions and fuel/oil consumption. For 'life of vehicle' environmental considerations EVs win hands down.
Petrol will be with us for longer than the prophets of ecological doom or peak oil would have us believe.
The really fast and/or really desirable cars will gradually feature hybrid / electric technology more and more, until eventually everyone but the very grumpiest of luddites will come to accept that this stuff really is worth having.
(I'm sure when the first Honda VTEC engines came out in 1990, there was a lot of "this will never catch on" and a lot of "I've never needed variable valve timing and I never will". fast forward 25 years, and now all but the most basic cars are doing it - and a 300hp car in 2015 drinks less petrol than a 150hp car from the 1980s.)
survivalkiwi,
Jan 14, 2:15pm
If the bloody greenies have their way the only transport we will have in the future will be push bike and sail boat.
harm_less,
Jan 14, 2:24pm
I think you'll find that "If the bloody petrolheads have their way the only transport we will have in the future will be push bike and sail boat." is more accurate. And even if the remaining oil supplies continue to be extracted with new technologies there will be very few who will be able to afford the prices!
richardmayes,
Jan 14, 2:57pm
Are you sure about that? Oil price has been more or less freefalling for the last 6 months!
According to Wussell Norman in 2008, petrol was going to be $10 / litre by now.
Like so many other fervent greenie prophecies of doom, that one turned out to be. wrong.
harm_less,
Jan 14, 3:49pm
And have you wondered why?
The US has been extracting oil from wells that were previously considered at the end of their productive life with the technologies associated with advanced hydraulic fracturing. The result is that all that extra production has now caused an international oversupply which is hurting OPEC. This fracking based production comes at a higher price than conventionally flowed wells and OPEC know this so they have upped their production in order to lower oil prices below the cost of that extracted by fracking. This can only be a short term strategy.
Long story short is that the drop in prices we are seeing now will be short lived and the following rise will likely be just as rapid. In the meantime countries that rely heavily on oil production for their income such as Iran, Uraguay and Russia are becoming economic cot cases which has potentially serious destabilising geo-political repercussions. Hold on tight, this is likely to be a rough ride!
harm_less,
Jan 14, 5:20pm
Oops, try Venezuela. My Latin American geography is a bit challenged.
If you look at the fuel used world wide I think you would find that the fuel used by "petrol heads" would be so miniscule it would not be able to be measured.
socram,
Jan 15, 5:36am
If memory serves me correctly, (and it often doesn't!) 1 jumbo jet flying from the UK to NZ (it may even have been to the USA) uses more fuel than the F1 cars do in a whole season.
eagles9999,
Jan 28, 5:18am
And its even worse when they have to turn back before they reach their dsestination because of some minor fault.
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