They cannot plummet unless the govt reduces the road tax. Mind you that may well happen when we get universal RUCs to capture the niche EV users being subsidised by ICEs.
franc123,
Apr 7, 6:56pm
Does anyone believe this BS? Until I see Green MP's out digging foundations by hand for new EV charge stations and completely refusing to travel in fossil fuelled aircraft to their international climate change meetings or to and from their own electorates they have zero credibility on the issue. They also dont have an answer for what gets done with all the petrol that is still the by product of crude oil refining that we need the other components of it for. Hyundai are now building their own charge stations in Korea because nobody else wants to do it/fund it and here in NZ we are constructing new fuel stations flat out.
intrade,
Apr 7, 8:44pm
itsalmostexclusivefakenewspubl- ishednow
gazzat22,
Apr 7, 10:01pm
Yep.One only needs to look at the amount spent by the Co Leaders of the greens on Air Travel to show they follow their usual line "Do as I say,Not as I do.! " not forgetting their granting millions to a private school and coming up with BS reasons
tygertung,
Apr 8, 2:04am
Driving a car with only one person in it is not the same as sharing a plane with many other people.
Not a relevant argument.
gazzat22,
Apr 8, 2:38am
Have you any idea what the fuel consumption and cost is of an aircraft . ? not to mention the pollution etc.
dublo,
Apr 8, 2:49am
An advertisement in an NZ aviation magazine some years ago highlighted the fuel consumption of the ATR-72 aircraft operated by the Mt Cook Airlines subsidiary of Air New Zealand. That 68-passenger plane would achieve 100 miles per gallon of Jet A1 per passenger. (Those 68 people driving their own cars between the same points would be hard pressed to match that figure!)
sr2,
Apr 8, 3:00am
Considering an average plane produces 285 g CO2 /passenger/km and an average car produces 42 g CO2 / passenger/km you might find the argument very relevant? (Its hard to argue with both the science and the maths).
harm_less,
Apr 8, 3:14am
Those calculations beg the question of how many passengers are in that "average" car, considering the typical person travelling for business reasons is probably the lone passenger/driver?
sr2,
Apr 8, 3:31am
These figures are based on the average occupancy per mile of a US airliner being 90.9% and the average occupancy per mile of a US car being 1.5 persons (or 13.333% for an "average" 5 seater).
bitsy_boffin,
Apr 8, 4:07am
Practical electric cars exist now and have for some years.
Practical electric airliners don't exist yet and won't for some years.
Just because you can't fly electric today doesn't mean that driving electric today is bad/stupid/pointless/. whatever else those people who seem vehmently against electric vehicles try to portray it as.
clark20,
Apr 8, 4:26am
I'm sorry, what's the problem? There will be heaps of electric options by then and should be cheap too.
harm_less,
Apr 8, 4:35am
The problem is that the anti-EV brigade are living in the past.
joanie32,
Apr 8, 4:47am
How about flying in an aeroplane compared to staying put and using Skype?
Why is that not an option?
bill-robinson,
Apr 8, 4:57am
no.the problem is the EV dreamers are not wired like real people
sr2,
Apr 8, 6:05am
You’ve yet to disclose what your “heaps of electric options” actually are?
To put a finer point on it there is no "problem" per say; the reality is there are a huge number of challenging (and interesting) both logistical and technical issues that will need to be addressed for this well intentioned all electric utopia to be achieved within nine years. These include massively increasing existing electricity generating capacity, reworking of the national grid, increasing the range of EV’s, developing quick charging technologies, the supply and disposal of rare heavy metals for batteries,……the list goes on.
Suggesting “we’ll use solar and wind and kick Rio Tinto out of the Bluff smelter” is as unrealistic as promising 10,000 Kiwibuild houses in 3 years. Let’s all take a step back and get real – we’ll never design, get resource consent for the infrastructure, raise the massive capital needed, in decades that alone 9 years!
Don’t get me wrong I’m enthusiastic about EV’s, in the late 90’s I helped a friend build an electric 70’s RWD 323 using somewhat primitive electric fork truck technology and a stack of lead/acid batteries. It only had a 25-30 Km range, weighed a bloody ton, and had a bad habit of catching fire but it was sort of road legal and sort of worked! I’m looking at buying the ‘ever lovely Mrs. sr2’ a small EV – probably as penance for the big Merc we just bought!
As an engineer I love the new technology but being an engineer also makes me not only a pragmatist but also very realistic about what is actually achievable.
Our present government has a history of promising much with the best of intentions only to fail miserably due to incompetent implementation and unintended consequences, to quote the boys from Top Gear - "what could possibly go wrong!".
s_nz,
Apr 8, 7:54am
The UK plan is a a ban of petrol & diesel cars (excl plug in hybrid's, and one full hybrids) from 2030 and full ban of cars with combustion engines from 2035.
I pick that NZ will lag 5 years behind. We are not typically a first mover with this kinda stuff. If I am correct that would mean a NZ go plug in hybrid / EV only from 2035, and EV only from 2040.
If that is the plan might as well tell people so that the auto industry can start planning for it.
Regarding fuel supply - I imagine everything will continue largely as it is today, untill at least 2045-2050. NZ's fleet average age is something like 14 years, so it's not like the fuel burning cars sold in say 2034 are going to be out of commission till at least 2050. And there will be a rush on the last year of sales before the phase out.
Also other sectors (marine, aviation, Heavy road vehicles, rail, agriculture, industrial) will have a much later phase out, so supply chains will need to remain for them.
tygertung,
Apr 8, 8:23pm
Most people don't fly every day. Most people drive a single occupant car every day when they could probably use other transport options like bike, e-bike, train, scooter, motorbike etc.
If people used e-bikes, there would be no need for more electricity production as they use hardly any electricity to charge.
Could use a heavier vehicle for special case use scenarios, like travelling long distance, towing trailers etc.
trade4us2,
Apr 8, 8:36pm
Only ignorant people worry about CO2.
apollo11,
Apr 8, 9:05pm
What's wrong with you? Flat beer isn't a joke.
rpvr,
Apr 8, 9:16pm
This is the crux of the whole matter. Fossil fuels are composed of plant and animal material that has always been a part of the environment. How can anything that has always been there pose a threat? It's no different to producing plants and animals as food and eating them, or indeed recycling ourselves by burial or cremation. All part of a continuous cycle.
voyager4,
Apr 8, 9:23pm
I would consider changing, but I'm not sure there are enough charging points for evs, and hybrids appear to require a minimum mileage each trip. the Emotion where they charge themselves while in use sounds good, but too expensive, but is there also a minimum mileage required per trip? I used to have a pushbike [50+ years ago] where the lights were powered by a dynamo on the back wheel. Really surprised it has taken the car makers so long to cotton on.
trade4us2,
Apr 8, 10:09pm
There are a lot of climate alarmists who publish lies regularly. Most of the media post these lies all the time. None of them are able to measure anything properly (although the figures are published by many scientists, but few people want to look at the figures). CO2 is about 0.041% of the air. There are about 3000 billion tonnes of CO2 in the air. The sea absorbs CO2 and sea creatures have been using CO2 to make their shells for about 500 million years. When they die they fall to the ocean floor, and join the 75 million billion tonnes of carbon that are already in the limestone. And ignorant people want to sequester a few thousand tonnes of CO2 at enormous cost.
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