Electric car thread

[octave]

Many supermarkets do have solar panels on the roof at least which is financially smart given the heavy loads of lighting and refrigeration.

 

   Coles to install solar panels on 100 stores as part of landmark agreement with Origin  

 

Woolworths Racks Up 150th Supermarket Solar Installation

 

 

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any supermarket solar panels specifically over car parks in my area but on my regular visits to Adelaide we shop at a couple of shopping centres that have  solar panels over carparks   Elizabeth Shopping Centre – Solar Car Park

[kgwilson]

It makes sense to do this anywhere is Australia given the amount of Sunshine we have but it does take forward thinking people and planning plus additional up front cost. The ongoing benefits and payback easily outweigh the initial cost. It shows that too many of Australian business managers are not thinking in to the future and are only concerned about short term gains.

 

Shell OIl on the other hand knows very clearly that the writing is on the wall for them and partnered with BYD to install a 258 bay EV charging hub next to Shenzen Airport in China which is covered in solar panels producing 300,000 kWh of energy annually. This was opened almost a year ago.

 

https://www.shell.com/what-we-do/mobility/mobility-news/shell-opens-largest-ev-charging-station.html

[onetrack]

I reckon Woolies and Coles should be able to garner a good source of additional income from solar panels over their carparks.

 

They could install EV chargers and thus offer an additional drawcard to get people into their shops, and dawdle around buying stuff they didn't plan on buying, while their EV charges up.

 

The number of servos I've seen fitted with huge arrays of solar panels over their buildings and forecourt roofing, is nothing short of a very substantial number.

[facthunter]

Relatively small areas of Panels won't charge a car very fast.. Nev

[onetrack]

Agreed - but it all adds to the supply from the grid - and the grid should be what is the major source of supply for the power to the EV's.

[facthunter]

WA should; never be connected to the East Coast Grid. Too costly and too much power loss. Remote areas Likewise..   Solar plus storage will cover most of the drier inland. Nev. You can be pretty inventive with storage. Nev

[old man emu]

As I was coming out of ALDI today I read on a poster that ALDI has been fully green energy since, if I remember, 2022. But I don't see the panels on their roof, so what is the fact that backs up that statement? Is it something to do with from whom they purchase their electricity?

[kgwilson]

It means that they source their energy from certified green energy suppliers as they cannot produce enough on the rooftop to run everything especially at night unless they have installed batteries.

[octave]

This is my local Aldi,  Also here is a link to an explanation     ALDI Australia Powering its Operations with 100% Renewable Electricity

[red750]

 

Big disparity.

 

I was at Forest Hill Chase shopping centre this afternoon and noticed a Mazda ICE SUV in a charging bay. When I came home I looked up the fine for this offence.

 

ACT         $3,200

NSW        $2.200

Qld           $2,875

Vic           $   369       or 2 penalty points

WA           $   100

SA            $     75  (EV's parked but not charging $111.)

[spacesailor]

Maybe a flat battery . LoL

spacesailor

[facthunter]

A few panels on  the roof is not going to make ALDI 100% green. It wouldn't even power the air-conditioning and the refrigerators..  Nev

[octave]

25 minutes ago, facthunter said:

A few panels on  the roof is not going to make ALDI 100% green.

318 panels in the case of this particular Aldi.   No, the carbon neutral claim is not made solely on the installation of solar panels as the link explained. Carbon neutrality in theory means not using power from carbon-creating sources. This means producing your own power (solar in this case) and purchasing other power from carbon-neutral sources. In the case of Aldi, I believe they have deals with local wind and solar farms.    The other sources are carbon-negative projects such as tree planting projects etc.  Also purchasing of carbon credits.    There are some flaws in some of these schemes (carbon credits, etc.) But it is surely better than nothing.

 

 

I suppose you could look at the panels on my roof and say "But they don't power everything all the time." 

 

 

I assume that Aldi (and others) get some benefit other than just being able to say look at us aren't we green?

 

Here are some pictures of a shopping centre I regularly visit when I am in Adelaide.   

 

 

 

 

 

[red750]

Check rego  

 

[facthunter]

More propaganda. Nev

[onetrack]

I was reading an article earlier today that was somewhat misleadingly titled, "What I wish I’d known before buying an electric car". It was simply interviews with 8 random EV owners.

 

Their information wasn't particularly revealing, and the motoring journo produced a pretty lightweight article. What wasn't mentioned - which item is a very important part of car ownership for most people - is the cars resaleability, the strength of the resale value of the car, and what it means, when vehicles have a far lower resale than owners expect, when it's time to quit them.

 

The resale value of EV's is not holding up, like it does for say, the example of Toyotas. Used Toyotas sell themselves, you have people flocking to buy them if they're anywhere near reasonable condition.

 

But the EV's resale value is poor, and it's a factor mentioned by Hertz when they declined to take up the remainder of their huge, original Tesla order. The Chinese EV's will have even less resale value or resaleability, than used Teslas.

 

https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/electric-car-advice-what-i-wish-knew/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21_08_24 Drive weekly newsletter&utm_content=21_08_24 Drive weekly newsletter+CID_8d408d7e63f0890202ddf070ff141627&utm_source=cm

[onetrack]

Another factor the above article didn't mention, was the EV's ability to indulge in numerous overtaking manouevres. Every overtaking move requires a great deal of grunt, regardless of the type of power source.

And in my neck of the woods, we run double road trains into the city, and you soon run into triple road trains on the outskirts of the urban areas - as close as 43kms to Perth, for example, at Muchea - where there's a road train assembly area for triples.

Overtaking road trains requires a lot of road space and plenty of reserve grunt - regardless of the type of power source. As several of the EV owners interviewed appeared to be doing rural tripping with their EV's, I would've liked to see reports from the EV owners as to how the EV's handled multiple overtaking moves, and whether the battery drain was rapid, when doing so.

[Marty_d]

So.. I should be able to pick up a cheap 2nd hand Tesla soon then? Great!

[onetrack]

One of the interesting things I've discovered is that many new EV's do not yet have an ANCAP safety rating - possibly due to ANCAP being behind the 8-ball when it comes to testing them.

 

I would imagine a whole new set of crash-testing rules will have to be drawn up for EV's. It appears to me that many of the EV's that have IC-engined "brothers" are using the ANCAP rating that has been applied to their IC-engined counterparts. That doesn't seem right to me.

[octave]

https://electricvehiclehub.com.au/information-centre/the-safest-evs-with-five-star-safety-ratings-in-2023/#:~:text=Summary,with five-star ANCAP ratings.

[onetrack]

Octave, thanks for the link, I was unable to find any mention of the ANCAP EV testing and ratings on the automotive news websites. Here's the ANCAP list for the "green" vehicles.

 

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cdn.ancap.com.au/app/public/assets/32251a92f70da062227e5c5bf8e9c499c3d35949/original.pdf?1721792864

[Litespeed]

I expect medium and long term the resale of EV's will be excellent.

 

When choosing a second or third hand car, the big issues are running cost and worries about big bills for service or repairs that are either unexpected or big dollars service ie belt changes etc. 

 

When EV cars have extremely low running costs and servicing is very cheap, they are big issues in their long term favour.

 

They are also considerably more reliable and have far fewer components to wear out or bust suddenly. 

 

And they can be fuelled at home/ work/ shopping centre. Plus as a mobile component of a home power system.

 

And the scrap/reuse value will be much higher as a old EV can become home battery storage. Far more valuable than the metal shredder value for a ICE car.

 

Petrol or diesel is never going to be cheaper but all EV batteries and motors are getting better and cheaper every year.  

 

Anybody can harvest fuel at home or even camping if needed with a solar system. It's makes us far less dependent on the industrial capitalist system of big oil and big energy markets. Put simply, if your buying a second hand car the EV is the much better choice, esp if you don't have money to burn.

[onetrack]

I reckon the price of oil will drop once the oil barons see their market shrinking. The cost of production of a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia is US$3. That leaves a lot of room to lower oil prices and kick the EV's in the nuts.

[Litespeed]

Onetrack,

 

For road train passing I expect the EV would be the winner every time.

Almost every EV marketed has far superior acceleration than any ICE version of the same car.

The max torque is instant and linear, it's not rev dependant, so always is "on cam" and rockets away.

 

Assuming you have some juice on the battery, you could do multiple overtakes and barely notice a range drop at all.

[onetrack]

I know the EV's usually have plenty of power - I'm querying what numerous overtaking moves would do to battery reserves. Like, several overtaking moves in half an hour of driving might reduce your range by 150kms or more, and bugger up your trip planning. A power burst has to consume a lot of battery power and affect the range.

 

Edited August 22 by onetrack