National Electric Vehicle Festival - Now with Tesla Roadster

Electric cars are all about de-coupling the mode of transport from the energy source. Sure, the power grid is primary supplied by coal now but as more and more renewable energy plants (or even non renewables like nuclear) come online, the car gets “greener” without having to change vehicles.

Fossil fuel cars using ICE will always be fossil fuel cars (without massive re-engineering to replace the engine).

Whilst there are thousands of jobs in coal mining and coal power plants, the government will be loathe to upset that applecart. Peter Beattie pretty much said so when he was QLD premier – he would oppose nuclear power in this country because of the QLD coal industry.

Danman said :

All I am saying is that we need to get rid of the worlds reliance on a limited resource.

Agree 100%

I’d love to see Australia step up and be one of the leaders of new technology in this field, but sadly we’re pouring most of our resources into keeping coal alive.

taco said :

Danman said :

Which reminds me about the prior talk about disposing of batteries. On the Tesla website they discuss how the roadster’s battery pack is compliant with RoHS and is theoretically safe to dispose of in landfill, but that would be a waste of money and they already have a recycling plan in place.

It would be a shame to waste all that Lithium.

Ah…headphones fixed…but still v quiet – I think my old R/C car made as much noise. Maybe you need a switch that at will turns on some speakers producing the dulcet tones of a screaming Lambo V12?

Danman said :

All I am saying is that we need to get rid of the worlds reliance on a limited resource.

Think of how many things are generated from fossil fuels, and made from petrochemicals… They are a finite source…..we WILL run out eventually – then what ? We’re fuct.

Watch the world crumble when the oil and coal runs dry and we have no redundancy – We could all be selfish and say Who cares, ill be dead, but really… is that the way forward for our grandchildrens grandchildren ?

It’s all one step at a time.

As for running out of oil and coal – we are at risk of running out of known oil and coal deposits that are extractable at current prices in the next few decades, by which time hopefully most of us will have switched to electric or hydrogen (which is really just a storage mechanism for electric)

For things that must use oil and coal still, there will be more sources that will be tapped due to the increased value (oil shales etc) or found because of better technology (deep drilling), or it will be synthetically produced (hydrocarbons are just arrangements of hydrogen + carbon right?)

So it’s not all doom and gloom, peak oil will not destroy humanity etc

And electric vehicles are really fun. The 1st gen Roadster has amazing amounts of power, imagine what the future will hold (the roadster2 has an improved drivetrain = even better acceleration, future advances in battery density could mean that we could get 4x the range etc)

Which reminds me about the prior talk about disposing of batteries. On the Tesla website they discuss how the roadster’s battery pack is compliant with RoHS and is theoretically safe to dispose of in landfill, but that would be a waste of money and they already have a recycling plan in place. The control electronics are also designed to be reused.

They also mention how that after the battery is past it’s usable life in the car (estimated 80% capacity after ~100,000 miles or 5 years) that it could be suitable for re-use as a backup battery for home solar systems which are not as demanding.

hax said :

Gungahlin Al said :

Was it just me or was the Tesla in the YT club REALLY quiet?

Sitting inside you struggled to hear it, and standing next to it virtually nothing.

As for the ‘dirty electricity’ debate, another thought – think of how much cleaner our cities / streets / heavy traffic areas will be. No more dirty pollution smell and smog 😀

I was making a joke because (at my end anyway) there was no sound on the YT clip.

I would have hoped to see more smoke from the Tesla… from the tyres!

All I am saying is that we need to get rid of the worlds reliance on a limited resource.

Think of how many things are generated from fossil fuels, and made from petrochemicals… They are a finite source…..we WILL run out eventually – then what ? We’re fuct.

Watch the world crumble when the oil and coal runs dry and we have no redundancy – We could all be selfish and say Who cares, ill be dead, but really… is that the way forward for our grandchildrens grandchildren ?

Gungahlin Al said :

Was it just me or was the Tesla in the YT club REALLY quiet?

Sitting inside you struggled to hear it, and standing next to it virtually nothing.

As for the ‘dirty electricity’ debate, another thought – think of how much cleaner our cities / streets / heavy traffic areas will be. No more dirty pollution smell and smog 😀

taco said :

Even if the electricity is generated by coal power stations, there are far less emissions involved by driving electric because the coal power station can be much more efficient than an ICE and have more emissions control systems.

Very much true. I’m pretty sure we’ve had this debate on Riotact before.