29 March 2021

Electric cars coming to Canberra first?

| johnboy
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[First filed: July 24, 2009 @ 13:05]

Simon Corbell is very excited to announce that Canberra, car city that it is, is going to lead Australia in the rollout of a planned electric car network.

“I am very excited about this announcement today by Better Place Australia to roll out electric cars in Canberra before any other State or Territory in Australia, and to see Canberra again leading the nation when it comes to alternative energy options,” Mr Corbell said.

“This is evidence the ACT Government is setting a national precedent when it comes to renewable and alternative energy, and local, national and international companies are seeing the ACT as a great place to establish their emerging technologies.”

READ ALSO The best places to buy electric cars in Canberra

Better Place Australia have indeed announced that they’re starting in Canberra:

Better Place Australia, the leading electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure and services provider today announced that it has chosen the nation’s capital, Canberra, as the site of its first city-wide roll-out of electric vehicle infrastructure in Australia.

The decision was announced by Better Place founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shai Agassi, with Evan Thornley, head of Better Place Australia and ActewAGL Chief Executive Officer, Michael Costello, the ACT’s electricity retailer and distributor.

“Canberra is a great city to start deploying our vision of zero-emissions mobility. Canberra has a mobile population that demands a viable alternative to allow for both short commutes and longer trips” said Mr Agassi. “There’s proven demand for EVs in Australia and the people of Canberra are ready for a more sustainable future. That future is electric.”

The initial roll out will involve an investment by Better Place, which will go towards building out the infrastructure, services and systems to support the first several hundred electric vehicles in Canberra.

The investment will cover:
• safe and completely recyclable lithium-ion batteries that will power the electric vehicles and be provided as part of the service to drivers, reducing the up-front costs of purchasing an electric vehicle;
• charge spots in homes, offices, shopping centres and other car parks where drivers can plug in to keep their battery fully charged; and
• “Battery Swap Stations” where motorists can simply drive in and have a depleted battery automatically exchanged for a fresh, fully charged one.

Of course how could we let this pass without a South Park clip?

Leading of course to The Perfect Storm of Self Satisfaction.

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We had a bunch of electric cars at my sons fete last year. The were cool. They were only small 2 seaters but we still had great fun bumping into each other within the confines of the environment provided. I’d love to see these on these street!

Here’s some information about a new Nissan EV, the likely vehicle relating to the Better Place-Nissan alliance?

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/08/01/2010-nissan-leaf-electric-car-in-person-in-depth-and-u-s-b/

uh huh.

Look, electric cars are great, in terms of reducing emissions. According to the links I’ve followed, they DO reduce greenhouse gas emissions – perhaps by 50%.

But for everything else? Like an earlier poster said – we’ll still get run down by electric cars. (In fact, for people with vision impairment, they pose quite a problem).

And as for those who don’t own a car, either because they are too young (mum will still be required as taxi driver) or too old (daughter will still be required as taxi driver) or too poor or too sick, they won’t do a thing.

Cities will still be designed as a mad crazy sprawl where you have to use a litre of petrol (a kilo of coal?) to buy a litre of milk. Kids will still be driven to school, gaining weight as they go. We’ll still pave approximately a third of our urban area with asphalt, heating up the city as we go. We’ll still sterilise massive quantities of real estate with car parks.

And, the killer argument – WE’LL STILL BE STUCK IN TRAFFIC!!!! even though it won’t be polluting so much.

That is to say, electric cars are ok, but they aren’t the silver bullet to all the problems brought about by using one tonne of (mainly non-recyclable) resources to drag one lazy ass around town.

No way should the ACT government waste a single cent on this technology until they’ve built every cm of cycleway and footpath and all ACTION buses run to a 10 minute frequency. Then we can talk hi-tech, non-standard, expensive, inequitable solutions.

I personally await for Mr Fusion to power my car.

I have to wonder what sort of life is on these batteries? Once the battery reaches the end of its life, it then becomes environmentally unfriendly.

Also, with these quick-charge battery-swap stations, whats to say you wont get a shoddy replacement, unless all batteries are fully tested and inspected? In which case, will the time and effort involved be worth it to the end consumer? Compare the markup on swap’n’go gas, compared with filling your own cylinder, mostly due to the time/effort involved in inspection.

Once such a system is up and running, will it be generically available, or will this company have a monopoly on vehicles and charging stations? Id be worried they’d play like Telstra has done to other telco’s with using their infrastructure. (Telstra vs TransACT in Gungahlin comes to mind)

The success of electric cars may largely be governed by energy storage. If (when) new ultracapacitor power systems come into play, electrical storage and charging times will be significantly improved.

A company called EEstor has claimed to have made a breakthrough with an ultracapacitor ceramic ‘EESU’ unit: a 3-5 minute charge will store enough energy for 640 kilometers.

To date the company has been keeping a low profile, and work is still being kept under wraps, though the company has established partnerships with Zenn Motors and Lockheed Martin in regards to military applications. There are also several patent applications that indicate movement.

Whether it is true or not, there are other emerging technologies such as Graphene that may revolutionise power systems and charge times. This technologies will also assist in regulating renewable power sources to provide stable continual power.

So while the technology is not yet commercially available, the prospect would be game-changing and certainly makes electrical cars a far cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative to petrol, especially in remote locations. Bring on the day I can ride to work and let the solar array on the garage trickle-charge my car.

The sooner the remaining petroleum can be reserved for something more useful than fuelling little Jack to his soccer match the better.

housebound said :

There’s always a powerpoint, except perhaps in the Tanami Desert, but who wants to sit around waiting for the recharge?

they will also have, supposedly, battery “swap ‘n’ go” points, fully automated, where robots will replace the spent battery with a fully charged one in less than a minute. Supposedly.

ChrisinTurner8:23 pm 26 Jul 09

If you follow the links on Better Place website you will find they are planning to use a car that won’t start being made by Nissan till 2012 in the USA. Would they be here before 2013?

Pandy said :

Ryoma, your arguements is flawed. It has been proven time and time again, that public transport is used mostly by commuters and people going to special events. People still use cars to get to and from shopping, taking kids to school, visitng friends. Higher densities (in particular in the CBD areas) and narrow roads only mean clogged raods, not only for private car use, but for public transport trams thatshare road space are BAD), making commute times for all much greater. Therefore people will always use cars. Also narrow roads means, peoples apratments are much closer to noise and pollution and less green belts. I for one welcome the bush feel of Canberra comapred to the apartment city living of Melbourne or Sydney. Your plan would only work if, cars where banned from the CBD and town centres, thereby forcing people to catch PT. Of course for most of us, who have bought in the burbs and have kids, this would mean our daily commute time would double or treble overnight and I would have to share a bus with the great swill. This is not the way I would like to use my time on Earth.

Pandy,

I make the above points aware of what you are saying. But having lived in Japanese cities that are much denser than here, not surprisingly there are not that many cars around relative to the population. What I am suggesting is that over time we try to change the city fabric, instead of blithely continuing along the same path and deepening the current problems.

I love Canberra’s bush too – if we had more density, it would be more accessible for a greater number of people. And I am not suggesting that the roads themselves should be narrow, simply that if we didn’t build on the quarter acre idea we would not need as many roads overall.

If the climate change worse-case scenarios are correct, kiss goodbye to your comfortable lifestyle (when we will both have much bigger things to worry about than this! ;D).

if he stands back to back with kevain eleven and work out how to tap the resource that would be that feedback mirror-loop of awesome intensity, they could perhaps power the planet. there’s a research grant there somewhere.

If you put a solar array up against Stan Nohopes Ass we could could provide enough energy for this scheme plus some more.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:24 pm 25 Jul 09

Don’t assume the additional demand on the electricity grid won’t impact the price of electricity…

Pandy said :

Therefore people will always use cars.

Heh, unless Peak Oil theory proves true and nobody can afford petrol. That’d be the selling point of an electric car for me, the fact that you’re only paying a few dollars per 100km for electricity, and you’re not susceptible to fluctuations in the price of crude.

“charge spots in … offices, shopping centres and other car parks” = even less spots for everyone else.

Yeah Pious is one.

Oh great, vibrators with license plates…..

And they are still yet to put the technology into a decent design, most have been downright boring.

I’ll stick with what I have.

screaming banshee2:17 pm 25 Jul 09

Ivan76 said :

Reminds me of that episode of South Park – Smug Alert! Where one of the characters buys hybrid vehicle and buys into the whole progressive movement.

I believe they purchased a toyota pious

GardeningGirl1:22 pm 25 Jul 09

This is what I’d be saying to the car salesman.
I’m looking for a second car for the family and I see the opportunity to do my bit for the planet.
What’s the safety rating, and how does it compare with the regular cars I’m considering?
What’s the price, and how does it compare with the regular cars I’m considering, and with the price of our main car?
How EXACTLY is this better for the planet, and be careful, I’ve had experience with greenwashing (not that I’m saying THIS is, it’s just a reflection of my current wary attitude towards anything with the word environment attached to it).
What compromises does it involve, eg recharging time, distance between recharges, boot space?

To anyone who thinks coal fired electric cars are no better then gas guzzlers, your wrong!

Electric cars run entirely on coal fired power have only 40% of the impact of equivalent Petrol cars.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/07/24/study-even-with-electricity-from-coal-electric-vehilces-beat-g/

Weaselburger10:51 am 25 Jul 09

awesome… we can be the first people in the country to be run over by new cars

For anyone wanting to read more about the history of Better Place, the Wired article from August 08 is a good place to start:

http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi?currentPage=all

These guys aren’t stupid. They’ve thought through a lot of the difficulties in establishing an entirely new infrastructure for cars. Good luck to them!

This is great news!

Nobody mentioned that electric vehicles are a LOT more quiet, and you won’t have all the fumes and smell near busy roads – streets themselves will eventually be cleaner. (it might take a few decades to completely transition though)

I guess in the future long distance hybrids will have hydrogen fuel cells instead of petrol.

it’s a great idea. I use my car to travel to work and back each day a round trip of 40km. I’d be happy to charge it overnight. if I want to go on a trip I’ll use my other older car.

Ryoma, your arguements is flawed. It has been proven time and time again, that public transport is used mostly by commuters and people going to special events. People still use cars to get to and from shopping, taking kids to school, visitng friends. Higher densities (in particular in the CBD areas) and narrow roads only mean clogged raods, not only for private car use, but for public transport trams thatshare road space are BAD), making commute times for all much greater. Therefore people will always use cars. Also narrow roads means, peoples apratments are much closer to noise and pollution and less green belts. I for one welcome the bush feel of Canberra comapred to the apartment city living of Melbourne or Sydney. Your plan would only work if, cars where banned from the CBD and town centres, thereby forcing people to catch PT. Of course for most of us, who have bought in the burbs and have kids, this would mean our daily commute time would double or treble overnight and I would have to share a bus with the great swill. This is not the way I would like to use my time on Earth.

barking toad8:12 am 25 Jul 09

Hippies who wish to get the smug factor should all buy golf carts to do the shopping and drop the kiddies off to school.

I’m still confused about how ‘electric cars’ will stop the weather from changing.

Something I think which has been missed above is that it’s not only the actual emissions that is the problem with cars full-stop, regardless of which power source they use.

A lot of non-renewable resources go into the building of each car, but for me the biggest issue is the amount of space that roads take up, and the problems that that causes.

If we had higher densities to start with, public transport would be a viable option because we wouldn’t need to travel so far, and actually finding a local station/tram or bus stop would not be so far away when visiting each other.

But the massive amount of land taken up by roads limits the amount of land available in good locations, and as a result brings the density right down.

It’s chicken and egg stuff, but none of our governments have the guts to tackle the issue properly.

Regardless of whether cars are petrol or electric, carbon trading and the like is going to show up this way of life as completely unsustainable.

LG said :

They’ll have to put some ‘electric car only’ signs in front of each charging station.

They’ll probably have to put up some other signs too, like:

Remember!

Never put anything in a power point that’s not meant for it. Electricity will travel right up a metal object into your body.

Oh!

Maybe they should also add:

… and something bad could happen, like you could even die!

As for Comment #4, given that electric engines * batteries * grid efficiency is somewhere between 90% and 99%, and that the internal combustion engine alone is in the 30% range, it’s practically impossible for EVs to end up worse.

You have to count the inefficiencies in petroleum exploration/drilling, shipping, refining, the amount of diesel burned in the oil trains getting petrol and diesel from Clyde to Fyshwick and getting the empty wagons back again a few times a week, and the diesel burned in hauling fuel from fyshwick to all the little servos around Canberra.

Even assuming all the power in use comes from coal plants (where coal is dug out of the ground and is usually hauled to the power plant on short electric conveyorbelts or in short haul diesel trains around the Hunter Valley, the efficiency would still be about double that of petroleum, at least.

There are two more considerations
1) The electricity doesn’t have to come from coal – Geothermal is going to take off in this country as soon as we start building high capacity transmission lines to the Cooper Basin

2) Most EVs would be charged overnight, when the coal plants are running on steam bypass mode. The coal would still get burned at about the same rate, but instead of the steam going to waste, it would drive the turbines throughout the night and the utility companies would be able to earn more revenue from the same infrastructure.

At my last house you could buy power from 10pm to 6am for about 5c per kwh if you had a smart power meter installed, for that very reason. Power overnight is virtually free. Just put one of those timer switches that cost $4 from Bunnings into the power point in your garage and set the car to start charging at 10pm. Your typical EV has a range between 100km and 300km (depending on the design), and most people don’t even do 50km in a day, so overnight charging alone is likely to be sufficient.

Reminds me of that episode of South Park – Smug Alert! Where one of the characters buys hybrid vehicle and buys into the whole progressive movement.

Soon we will be able to preachy talk with our eyes closed and like the smell of our own farts (like some of us don’t already). Deciding that we cannot live among such backward, unsophisticated Queanbeyan folk. I see a wall being built here fellas…

My choice would be this one. Converted in 1979 to Electric power and still going. He now charges it at home from solar panels on his roof. The only detail they didn’t release was the cost of the Lithium batteries and the service life. Toyota Prius being an example of this. Huge environmental cost for a small improvement in emissions compared to a modern diesel.

http://www.evalbum.com/1798

Every 50klms should have mentioned (non-Country)

Want to make it work?… Mandatory Refueling Points every 50klms, $5000 buy back for all pre-2000 automobiles.(luxuries get some version of this, pro-rata)

Done deal, game over

There’s always a powerpoint, except perhaps in the Tanami Desert, but who wants to sit around waiting for the recharge?

screaming banshee8:12 pm 24 Jul 09

taco said :

I wouldn’t call it convenient until the infrastructure and technology catches up.

That’s kinda the point, the project is about the infrastructure more than the vehicles themselves.

People have been converting petrol based cars to battery/electric since the 70’s/80’s if not before. If for those people its worthwhile with all the hassles of heavy traditional batteries, engineering requirements and a lack of charging options I’m sure recent technological advances can only make it easier to adopt.

The change has to start somewhere I suppose, might as well be here.

Well yes, if they want it to work in Canberra they’d be smart to put an output of the charging network in Jindabyne and Batemans Bay.

+1 Thumper

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

I agree. Hybrid is a crap solution, because your carrying weight for batteries, petrol, and two engines.

For low energy use, weight is your enemy.

I agree that Hybrid isn’t the best solution, but it’s a transition technology until we have high voltage charge stations everywhere and batteries capable of being charged in 5-10mins

Sure you could say that people should just hire a petrol car for occasional longer trips, but people base their primary car’s purchase on the assumption that it can handle those trips, relegating a 200km range car to a secondary vehicle.

While people have driven electric vehicles long distances (see http://www.teslamotors.com/blog5/?p=68) I wouldn’t call it convenient until the infrastructure and technology catches up. Hybrids are here, they work, and with minor modifications they can be made to run electric only in daily use without worrying about running out of battery 50kms from the nearest powerpoint.

Inappropriate5:15 pm 24 Jul 09

Cute, but I can’t see the cars being much use for those who ever want to day trip to the snows, Sydney or the coast etc.

i wonder what kind of cars they’ll be using. most true electric vehicles have massive, integrated batteries. certainly not a quick swap style of thing.
the cost of charging your car would need to be lower than the cost of a tank of petrol to get you the same distance for it to really be financially viable.
i’d also like to second someone’s point from above. power station are more efficient at making power then your car engine, so even if you use more grid power for you car you’ll overall be reducing emissions.

All, I don’t have very high hopes in seeing this initiative through to reality. Watch this documentary: http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/. Been tried before and failed. Oh and yes, taking electricity from the grid is more efficient than running your own generator (eg. car motor v electric motor but also true for bus v electric tram).

Agassi gave up a massive salary at SAP to start this venture, so i’m thinking it’s a fairly serious venture.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy4:34 pm 24 Jul 09

I agree. Hybrid is a crap solution, because your carrying weight for batteries, petrol, and two engines.

For low energy use, weight is your enemy.

taco said :

I hope they offer a model of this car as either a petrol/diesel hybrid so that you can take them on a longer trip without worrying about finding a charge station, but with enough EV only capacity to get around town (100km or so)

And even if they are charged by coal powered power stations, they still emit less pollution than an ICE because they are more efficient and can have better emissions control

Hybrid ick! Don’t go adding more weight and complexity.

as for emissions, are we talking about carbon or general pollution, once you take into account transmission losses and inefficiencies in both battery charge/discharge and the electric engine the last study I saw had the ICE miles ahead on carbon emissions.

But if we’re going to look at everything else that comes out of the back of a car it’s a whole other story.

And electric cars can have their “fuel” turned green very easily by a change in power supply in the future.

Peterh could you maybe read the posted material or, heaven forfend, the links?

For quick charge they’re offering battery swapping stations.

And with a fully charged battery good for 200km the vast majority of people will be able to get to work and back, and do all their errands on a single charge anyway.

But topping up at work from the morning commute is obviously intended to see people heading out in the evening with a full charge.

One thing they will need to do is sell the cars cheap.

GardeningGirl said :

Beginnings of a good idea but I too wonder about where the electricity is coming from . . .

I don’t think we have to worry too much about a power shortage unless the electricity companies are being shifty – if we have more demand then it will be feasible to create more power generation capacity (hopefully the wind/solar/hydro/nuclear variety and not a coal/gas one)

I hope they offer a model of this car as either a petrol/diesel hybrid so that you can take them on a longer trip without worrying about finding a charge station, but with enough EV only capacity to get around town (100km or so)

And even if they are charged by coal powered power stations, they still emit less pollution than an ICE because they are more efficient and can have better emissions control

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

Get the public to buy their own electric cars, but provide free, electric-car-only parking spots with free battery recharging.

If the price is right, people will be keen.

what is the average charge time for the cars? if it is an over night job, the parking in town might not be the best idea. how will the connection impact the household accounts for re-charge?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy3:42 pm 24 Jul 09

Get the public to buy their own electric cars, but provide free, electric-car-only parking spots with free battery recharging.

If the price is right, people will be keen.

GardeningGirl3:39 pm 24 Jul 09

Beginnings of a good idea but I too wonder about where the electricity is coming from . . .

Might as well take the bus as there will be no parking after the sustainable transport plan.

They’ll have to put some ‘electric car only’ signs in front of each charging station.

I wonder, will they charge for both parking AND charging your car?

andym said :

Now where in Canberra can I get the fusion generator on my DeLorean serviced.

back in the future, no doubt…

andym said :

until we have non coal generated electricity we save nothing in emissions (potentially its worse?).

Now that is probably not true. A few studies (e.g. http://www.pluginamerica.com/images/EmissionsSummary.pdf for those who are interested) suggest that there are significant reductions in green house gas emissions to be made through grid charged electric cars (between 11-100%).

This is primarily because the internal combustion engine idling in your car is substantially less efficient at turning fossil fuels into energy than a giant coal power plant running 24/7 designed to do nothing but turn coal into electricity as efficiently as possible.

Certainly not zero emissions, but I would say a significant improvement on our current predicament.

BFT a radical new idea was trialled somewhere, as other posters suggest it could be an great environment for getting the “real world” solutions nutted out. If this is combined with the car-sharing programs that have been kicking off in other cities there might be real benefits.

Then again getting people to change their motoring behaviour in this town is tricky at best. Still thumbs up from me for having a go

astrojax said :

couldn’t do this in sydney, as the battery woud go flat before you found a spot to park.

Hah! It’ll go flat at one of the 101 traffic lights a Sydney driver has to stop at before even getting to the parking spot.

How good is the heater in these? If it doesn’t have proper heating then you can forget Canberra.

VYBerlina is right of course, until we have non coal generated electricity we save nothing in emissions (potentially its worse?).
But if the gas powered and solar generation plants eventuate then its all steps in the right direction. You have to start somewhere and you need the infrastructure in place.

Now where in Canberra can I get the fusion generator on my DeLorean serviced.

Trunking symbols2:01 pm 24 Jul 09

How much does the extension cord cost?

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy1:37 pm 24 Jul 09

Zero emissions my bum – where do people think the electricity comes from.

That said, piloting something like this ia a great way to develop solutions to real world problems, and it will be interesting to see how it goes. I read in wheels mag a few month ago that the small Mitsubishi electric car costs about 1/6th to run on retail electricity as the same vehicle with a small 4 cyl motor on petrol.

And Canberra, with it’s relatively smooth traffic flow is ideal for this type of vehicle.

Now, if we could just sort out parking issues…

couldn’t do this in sydney, as the battery woud go flat before you found a spot to park.

canberra should be a good trial city, with hopefully a good federal agency take-up and with the ‘village’ mentality here re suburban shopping centres, should be a lot of spots to put recharging stations.

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