Comments on: EV Vs HV https://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/blog/9587/ News and views about cars in Australia Fri, 19 Jun 2020 14:11:47 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.5 By: Jason https://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/blog/9587/#comment-7693 Tue, 25 Jun 2019 21:37:03 +0000 http://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/?p=9587#comment-7693 One thing that is failed to mention with Hydrogen, it currently costs twice the price of Petrol/Diesel and takes 4 times the amount of electricity to produce compared to just using a battery. So if your mission is the petrol industry to replace their product with another dependency product, or you are the car company/dealership looking to replace their product with another product that needs comparable servicing, then hydrogen is the answer. But if you’re a consumer looking to reduce your annual total vehicle spend then Battery Electric Vehicle is the clear winner.
The Mirai is a good example compared to the Tesla Model 3. The Mirai uses 5kg of hydrogen to go 500km and the Model 3 uses 75kWh of electricity to go 500km. 5kg of hydrogen costs upwards to $80 and 75kWh of electricity costs upwards to $25 (my electricity is cheaper and would cost $15, my petrol car would cost about $45).
Look at who is pushing hydrogen cars and then you can understand why they are doing that. At the moment it really does not make any sense to push hydrogen as a fuel for cars.
Oh, and everyone talks about needing recharge stations like we need petrol stations. That really is not true. Plenty of people have a garage in Australia, and you can plug an electric car straight into a power point. Think about that for a minute, how many places do you go where there is not a power point. Now hydrogen you will need like we have petrol stations, it will be the only place you can get hydrogen.
Finally, with hydrogen you still have tankers driving all over the place to deliver hydrogen, but with electricity you already got the poles and wires delivering power. How much less congested will be the streets when you remove a huge portion of truck traffic?

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By: Bill Nixon https://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/blog/9587/#comment-7687 Mon, 24 Jun 2019 10:42:47 +0000 http://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/?p=9587#comment-7687 Since test driving a friend’s Tesla Roadster six years ago I have been convinced electric cars are the way of the future. However, I don’t see myself driving one, probably ever, as I’m getting older and EV are still too expensive and the charging stations too few and too far apart. Also consider that because of the long time to recharge batteries there will need to be many more recharging stations than petrol bowsers to provide the same level of service to motorists. A car sits at a bowser for two or three minutes to load enough petro to do 500 plus Km. To do the same distance an EV will need to stay at the electric ‘bowser’ charging its battery for much longer. When you observe how ubiquitous petrol stations are today, it is mind blowing to think how many more charging stations will be needed to achieve a similar result. Australia is also facing a shortfall of electric power due to a lack of government policies and this will make the widespread acceptance of EV’s even harder.

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By: Helge Raatz https://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/blog/9587/#comment-7686 Mon, 24 Jun 2019 08:45:49 +0000 http://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/?p=9587#comment-7686 Hi,
there is one factor that wasn’t mentioned about EV, however, it is an essential part and probably the most controversial in an EV: the battery and it’s environmental impact, eg. the mining process of lithium and other rare metals used, the cost of it and the disposal at the end of its life span.

Kind Regards
Helge

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By: Richard Flanagan https://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/blog/9587/#comment-7684 Mon, 24 Jun 2019 06:20:39 +0000 http://www.privatefleet.com.au/blog/?p=9587#comment-7684 In time we should see a more in depth evaluation of ICE’s, EV’s & HV’s. It would need to consider a number of often forgotten trends and components for each of the vehicles including:
1. Home maintenance v Professional;
2. Life expectancy or turnover;
3. Capital Cost (CAPEX), not only of the whole vehicle but any major component that has a significant percentage of the capital cost that differs from the vehicle life expectancy. This of course involves the shorter life of a major battery component of an EV when compared with the other vehicles. This is sometimes considered as a subcomponent of CAPEX or Operating cost (OPEX);
4. CAPEX above would allow some comparison of a cost per km or pa;
5. The bottom line of OPEX should look at cost per km or pa;
6. Has anyone looked at the registration and insurance cost of the newcomers compared with the ICE’s. While any newcomer may have to spend some time in the fleet before those costs plateau out. They are a component of the annual OPEX that a large number of the buyers should be interested in and may not initially be even;
7. As with the recorded introduction of the ICE’s (and EV’s have run the gauntlet) with and without the CSIRO development there may be a perceived higher risk or danger associated with hydrogen fuel. Hope we don’t need to walk in front of a HV with a orange flag. A full evaluation would likely include a Risk Evaluation on the three types over a all aspects;

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