Volt is 'go' for Oz as charging-point deal unveiled

Following on from its antipodean appearance at the Australian International Motor Show in Sydney, the Chevy Holden Volt is coming to Oz. And Australian power company AGL is going to put in charging infrastructure. We're a little saddened that the Outback may soon cease to reverberate to the bellow of V8-engined Holden …

[Pete James]

Better Place - Terrible Branding!

The infrastructure has always been the second most problematic hurdle faced by alernative power vehicles so to a certain extent it is good to see it finally being addressed. Ive never been comfortable with the poor reasoning behind the likes of Better Place to be honest; just like a fuel station this should be a service open for all. To operate restrictions is to screw yourself through lower usage, and using the mobile phone argument doesn't work as the connection and payment can be done in different ways.

[Neil Barnes]

Infrastructure

I had wondered when someone might get around to considering the improvements in the infrastructure that will be necessary to handle (a) generating and (b) distributing the back-of-the-envelope-estimated 50kWh per car per day * 20 million cars = 1TWh over and above what is normally used - a mere 340GWh according to the BERR http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/energy/statistics/source/electricity/page18527.html

It's hard to see how that's going to be generated by any non-CO2 emitting process that doesn't involve Cherenkov radiation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Environment ruins classic film

Mad Max dystopia no longer possible, disappointment for thousands.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not gonna work outside the south-east of Aus

A few examples of driving times in my area:

Buy a pack of cigs: 45 minute round trip

Local council offices: Three hours round trip

Nearest cinema and curry house: Five hours round trip

State capital: 48 hour round trip

National capital: 108 hour round trip

The above is actual time behind the wheel not including rest stops. And how many times is some minimum wage, spotty-faced forecourt worker going to damage the bodywork during battery changes on a long trip?

[b]

good, bring it on!

why all these "trials"?

why not just do it..?

screw these oil pigs holding us back..ok, so i know these "plug ins" have a iddy-biddy generator in the boot, cos our battery and leccy tech has had it's development arrested by the oil pigs, but that should at least give them something to supply in the decade or two it will take to get off oil..

cheers,

bill

p.s. stuff and nonsense: http:www.eupeople.net/forum

[Francis Boyle]

re: Environment ruins classic film

Don't worry, I hear they're remaking it in Swindon with Sinclair C5s.

[RW]

Charging points

In the colder parts of Canada, every parking space has an electric outlet so you can plug in your engine block heater. Indeed, the presence of such outlets defines "colder parts of Canada".

No, I don't know what wattage block heaters are, but since ignorance has never stopped me from babbling like a fool, I'll hazard a guess that it's on the order of 10 watts.

[James]

Good for the environment?

Given that about 85% of Australia's electricity is generated from burning coal, can someone tell me how this is any better than cars running on petrol? Until a greater percentage of their electricity generation is happening from renewables this smells suspiciously like greenwash...

Fine in somewhere like New Zealand where the electricity is mostly from hydro.

[Mark]

Yeah right!

Like to see how one of these underpowered streaks of piss travels when you have to go outside of the major cities. Somehow I think the typically lame range of these things won't fare too well in a country of such magnitude. You can drive for hours here and still get virtually nowhere. Christ, low sulphur diesel (the type modern cars can actually use) was only mandated by law in around 2002 and I've never seen 98 RON fuel on sale in the 2 years I've lived here. Five minutes outside of a city and you'd be poked. As for anywhere off of the East coast, long range tanks would be the norm.

[Adrian Esdaile]

Green? Right... maybe try some research....

I don't know if anyone noticed, but us Aussies use more (and dirtier) coal per head that anyone else in the Known Universe, including China!

So, an electric car powered by coal-produced electricity at frighteningly low effiency due to our ageing power stations, and crap long-distance lines and lack of any large scale solar, wind, sheep farts or other renewable energy supplies (we have a drought, so the hydro schemes sort of DON'T WORK) works out to be.... just as polluting as petrol.

Nice.

The car companies make more money though, as they are a 'premium product' that can put huge markups on because only very wealthy black-t-shirt wearing, apple-users with rectally inserted ipods are going to fork out cash for it.

[Michael Hitchins]

(dont) forget perth

looks like the infrastructure isnt coming to the other side of the country. i guess thats ok tho, sounds like a bit of a sham to me with the locked in provider, and im sure the distances involved outside of Perth wouldnt promote the car either - coming from the person who doesnt know the specs of the car at all.

and who'd want to drive a small car from holden anyway? look like a tool haha.

[Fozzy]

@Not gonna work outside the south-east of Aus

Considering the driving times I would have guessed the NT or the kimberley region, but after the fucked up drive into work this morning on Sydney roads, you could just as easily be living in the outer Sydney metro area.

[Anonymous Coward]

FAIL

Great! my tax dollars are going towards another "green" scheme that is worse for the environment that the original problem. You've upset me now.

Of course even if the leccy was generated from renewable sources, we like our big v6's and v8's and our big 4wds here in Oz (especially in the outback), so it's still going to be a flop. Who really wants to pay a premium for a tiny car that is slower than a normal car, and has a range of only 30km, not to mention that the leccy will probably end up costing more than petrol anyway.

Big FAIL as far as I'm concerned.

[dawson tennant]

It's about time

I've been hoping that we'd be giving up on fossil fuel burning autos for a long time, but for some reason hadn't until now noticed anything about any corporations with the marketing savy to begin to set up a network of "filling stations". For Personally I hate cars, and would much rather walk or ride a bike, but I think the time has come to slow down our polluting. I hope the batteries on such beasts would not be landfill items at the end of their lives.

If we can't get out of the mode that we all must drive around in our own private vehicles, at least the idea of minimizing the damage they cause to the environment is a good start. But what would it take to move us from getting our heads wrapped around public transport instead of roughly 80 percent (in Canada anyway) of the traffic on the road being in private vehicles only carrying the driver?

Dawson