By Jo Nova
History shall record the ignominious boom and bust of a car genre forced on citizens so they could produce better weather.
Things are so bad, Joe Biden has even put the brakes on his aggressive EV scheme, stepping away from the 2030 deadline. “It’s just a delay” of course. The plan would have forced car manufacturers to sell 3 EV’s for every 2 cars with a combustion engine by 2030. If customers didn’t volunteer to buy enough EV’s, companies would be forced to jack up prices of the cars everyone wants in order to cross-subsidize the discounted sales of the unpopular EV’s. Car dealers were appalled and said so.
EV sales growing in some places but falling in others. The shift has been so fast the full length of the supply chain is in turmoil. The price of lithium has fallen 90% from it’s peak, nickel has halved. Ford has sacked 1,400 people. GM has cut its workforce by 1,000. Hertz is selling one third of it’s electric fleet and cancelling $3 billion dollars worth of forward orders. A month ago, the biggest political party in the EU decided it would rather drop the ban on petrol and diesel cars.
Meanwhile EV drivers in China are learning the same awful lessons the US learned a month ago. EV batteries don’t go as far during freezing cold weather and are extremely hard to charge. During the Lunar New Year holiday Chinese drivers have been forced to push their EV’s for miles in the snow, while traffic jams formed at charging stations. Drivers were so desperate they lit fires on roads to stay warm, rather than use their car heaters and drain the battery. EV’s were banned from the Hainan Ferry due to the fire risk. It must have been sudden. Some Chinese EV manufacturers offered to help rescue cars, but it will take weeks to ship the cars back to owners.
China has placed big bets on EV demand. It would get burnt badly if the West wakes up:
Biden’s lofty EV requirements might not survive the election year
Nora Neughton Business Insider
The Biden administration is poised to dump controversial rule that would require Americans to buy more electric cars sooner,…
America’s EV boom goes bust!
Lithium and nickel producers begin mass layoffs and pause multi-billion-dollar projects as US says no to electric car push
Daily Mail
…as interest in EVs has slipped, lithium and nickel facilities – metals used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles – are taking cost-cutting measures including mass layoffs and suspending operations.
The demand for electric vehicles surged in 2022, rising by 76 percent in April of that year, but by the end of 2023, the number of vehicles sold dropped to just 50 percent.
The price of lithium has fallen 85% from the peak:
[Credendo]: According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), in 2022, batteries dominated the global end-use markets, absorbing 74% of the global lithium production. Indeed, the main driver behind lithium demand is the global transition towards a greener economy.
Global lithium production has doubled in the last six years, but even fans of the green revolution admit that the fall in lithium prices is largely due to the lack of demand because of the unexpected fall in EV orders. According to the USGS batteries used three quarters of the global lithium production.
The same pattern is happening in Germany — From NoTricksZone:
Blackout News here reports how German software giant SAP “no longer wants to use Tesla electric cars as company cars in future.” and is “removing the electric car manufacturer from its list of suppliers”.
Cuts at German Ford plant
In another article, Blackout News reports that Ford is cutting 3500 of 4500 jobs at its Saarloius, Germany plant, citing a “restructuring program.” Deindustrialization is accelerating in Germany.
Production slowdown at Opel
German car manufacturer Opel has announced reduced work-hours at its Eisenach plant “due to low demand” as a “direct response to falling demand for the Opel Grandland SUV, which is offered in variants including an innovative plug-in hybrid.”
Even as Chinese EV companies have aggresssive expansion plans, bad news is popping up:
Long Charging Lines, Snow Stymie EV Drivers in China New Yearhttps://t.co/eyBFMpu0mA
— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) February 20, 2024
Long Charging Lines, Snow Stymie EV Drivers in China New Year
Long waits at highway charging stations, rapid battery depletion in freezing snow and limits on electric vehicles on car ferries because of safety fears have combined to make the Lunar New Year holiday a frustrating experience for China’s growing number of EV drivers.
In central Hubei province, some drivers were forced to push their EVs for miles after heavy snow and freezing rain closed roads, and their batteries — which lose charge faster in cold weather — ran out of juice. According to local media reports, some even resorted to building fires on the road to keep warm because they were concerned using the car’s heater would deplete the battery even faster.
On the tropical island of Hainan — one of China’s most popular tourist spots — the local government restricted the number of EVs and plug-in hybrids on car ferries because of fears of fire or explosions, stranding thousands of cars.
Meanwhile with uncanny timing, the Australian Labor government are aiming to copy the US policies we already know have failed, just as Joe Biden backs away from them:
Labor will press ahead with vehicle emission cuts based on US standards, despite reports the Biden administration is trimming the scale of its own electric vehicle ambitions, amid a growing political clash over the cost of popular utes and SUVs.
Reuters on Monday matched the story, noting the US Environmental Protection Agency in April 2023 proposed requiring a 56 per cent reduction in new vehicle emissions by 2032. Under the initial EPA proposal covering 2027-2032, car makers were expected to aim for EVs to constitute 60 per cent of their new vehicle production by 2030. EVs now make up about 7 per cent of the US car fleet.
The Australian opposition will take that electoral gift and run with it:
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, campaigning in Victoria ahead of next month’s byelection, accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of “proposing a great big new car and ute tax, which is going to drive up the cost of a HiLux or a Ranger by somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000”.
Car crash photo by Alexa from Pixabay
Australian flag by Phillip Barrington
The Year of the Dragon is dragging us to poverty and Blackout Bowen/Labor wants to double down on premature electrification.
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Blackout bowen is doing his bit. His tax on non-EVs will have an extreme effect. Go-Auto magazine have provided a table. p20-23:
Petrol Utes using 12.0l per 100 km will be fined 2025 $7,940 increasing each year to 2029 where it becomes $19,740 per vehicle
Diesel utes using 8.0l per 100km will be fined in 2025 $1300 rising each year to 2029 where it becomes $13,100 per vehicle
The fines are applied to the OEM (manufacturer) on the ‘average emissions intensity of all vehicles imported.’ Will be offset by low emissions vehicle imported.
Top brands from 2023 can expect to be fined. The penalty amount is dependant on so many unknown factors at the start of Jan 2025 so a range is given:
Toyota : 215, 240 vehicles : Penalty: $21m to $2.1 Billion
Mazda : 100,008 vehicles : Penalty: $10m to $1 Billion
Ford : 87,800 vehicles : Penalty $8.7m to $878 m
These figures do not take into account the actual model line up emissions and are estimates only.
Either way these fines will be passed on to consumers so expect big prices rises for Petrol or Diesel vehicles in 2025.
Therefore expect high demand in 2024 for new vehicles and then sales to fall off a cliff in January 2025.
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We’ll end up with ED, Electrical Dysfunction.
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This is good news in general but the more fanatically woke followers of the WEF and UN like Australia where the government fundamentally wants to eliminate personal mobility (for non-Elites) and have us (non-Elites) all living in “15/20 minute cities” will still suffer badly.
A commitment to EVs will mean less personal mobility, freedom and less convenience, less driving range, higher risk of fire, less affordability of a private vehicle, and even more tracing, tracking and control etc.. You will be limited to the driving range permitted by the EV charging network.
And of course, where will all the power to charge them come from? Certainly not wind and solar plantations. We will need to build coal, gas and nuclear power stations to charge the EVs.
Also, woke companies like Alfa Romeo are committed to abandoning ICE engines which will likely see the demise of those marques. Get woke, go broke. E.g. see https://youtu.be/7MSWQ3u_sTw
The Left claim 15/20 minute cities are a “right wing conspiracy theory”, so you know it’s true.
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Does that mean Victorian villages are bigger or are the residents 5 min slower?
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The unions in Vicdanistan have decreed that a 15 minute walk must now take no less that 20 minutes… ummm errr something to do with health and safety. On weekends and public holidays a 15 minute walk must be completed no faster than 40 minutes. They’ve also appointed a 15 minute quality monitor to ensure no one is taking shortcuts. These positions are only open to union delegates’ family members.
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There’s a subsection to that decree Harves, and that is that if the 15 walk looks like taking less than the stipulated minimum of 20 minutes you are required to find a seat and sit down on it until the 20 minutes arrives – alternatively find a public lav and sit in there, just like at union workplaces. You may then finish the 15 minute walk.
Those who walk fast are known as fast-drying scabs or low flying Danbusters. Once declared a fast drying scab you’ll find that your walking comrades have all deserted you.
But who cares? They’re all fat lazy tossers in any case.
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Apparently the “internet of things” has an almost insatiable appetite for electricity as well.
One does wonder where it’s all going to come from.
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The good news is that those in favour of EVs live in the cities, so the resultant fires will reduce their numbers.
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To be fair, I don’t think they’re claiming that 15 min cities themselves are a conspiracy, but the idea that 15 min cities are a devious plan to eliminate personal mobility etc. While some may have ulterior motives when pushing the 15 min city, the fact that suburbs with train stations, tram lines and nearby shops/pubs/cafes are far more expensive to buy property in vs sprawley car dependant outer suburbs tells us a lot about what where people prefer to live. So let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. No one wants to have to get in the car to pickup a few things from the supermarket if they don’t have to.
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Under the plans for Oxford UK and its 15-minute city idea,
“residents will be able to drive freely around their own neighbourhoods but will be fined up to £70 for driving into other neighbourhoods”. The Oxford Student
“There’ll be no road closures but cars will be fined if caught driving through certain areas unless they have a permit”. Five arrests as thousands protest in Oxford against LTN ’15-minute cities’
1984 was exactly 40 years too early.
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‘cars will be fined if caught driving through certain areas unless they have a permit’
Human ingenuity will deal with that.
https://securitycamcenter.com/destroy-security-camera/
https://www.pascoecriminallaw.com.au/post/the-offence-of-make-or-use-false-document-in-victoria
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I do love waking early morning to good news.
What better news could we wish for other than to see Green policies crash & burn. Those foolish enough to become involved in market destroying socialist policies will get seriously singed when the EV bubble in Australia continues to deflate no matter what the morons that identify as weather wizards continue their Lemming like suicide!!
If you’re considering buying a car find a good used ICE vehicle soon because prices will start to rocket upwards when the morons interfere even more vigorously with the free market.
Warning to Dutton & Co!! Don’t think even for one moment about hanging on to Green / ALP policies to try & lure lefty voters. Crash & burn experiences are becoming more frequent & devastating! Just ask the Woolworths CEO. The people are waking up to their new found weapons to defend our country from lunatics ( politicians )!!
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I’m remembering pink batts and cash for clunkers!
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Pink batts….
Did anyone ever investigate whether their installation actually reduced the cost of heating/cooling in the houses where they were installed?
And was the ROI a meaningful / useful number?
My understanding of physics says it should have been a “good idea”. But was it given the implementation was by government direction?
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And hot off the press!
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/02/21/leasing-companies-are-demanding-payoffs-from-ev-makers-like-tesla-as-resale-values-plummet/
This is another weak link in the BOB chain
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Polestar wanted the chance to buy their cars back from Hertz in order to prop up used prices.
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Without man made Climate Change, electric cars would be an oddity not verging on compulsory. And electric cars fit the story, even if in practice they save no CO2 and the additional mining would devastate the planet.
Since 1988 and the UN/WMO creation of the IPCC at the same time Al Gore, Presidential candidate promoted the whole business of world ending heat, 36 years ago, politicians have loved the power it gave them.
So the Labor party of Australia has a Climate Policy!
It is so ridiculous as to be be a stunning idea, that politicians control the weather, the climate of the planet. Every politician. And they can use Climate Change to justify anything at all. Rip up the rain forests, fill the ocean with windmills, destroy the agricultural land, force an end to all farming. Especially meat. Ruin the environment totally as long as you save the planet! A Green idea of course. Lifelong communists like Albanese and Bandt on steroids. Power used to come from the barrel of a gun. Now it comes from the electric battery.
While the UN demands its $100Bn a year to save the planet and even the Australian PM stole $444 million to ‘save’ the Great Barrier Reef, it seems that destroying the entire car industry and sending it to China will also save the planet.
That’s because like all life on earth, cars produce CO2! The gas of life. And CO2 is now the deadliest industrial pollutant on the planet and after 250 years very slowly increasing 50%, the end of the world is nigh. Any day now. The story is trust me, I’m a Climate Scientist and earn my living from Climate Science. And Climate Scientists don’t lie. So trust me and buy your carbon indulgences and avoid a fiery hell and boiling seas.
If you believe that nonsense and in my opinion no politician does, except perhaps Chris Bowen, you really need therapy. It’s so preposterous as to boggle the mind. Rising seas, boiling seas, hell fire. 250 years of it and Armageddon any day now.
So getting an electric car at twice the weight, twice the price, half the range and completely controlled by the government for incredibly slow recharging will fix the planet? Really?
Prove it. I would like someone to try. In a Chinese organized world experiment at the cost of millions of lives, in 2020 all cars world wide were garaged for a long time in the pandemic. Most aircraft were grounded. Cruise ships were docked. And the resultant drop in CO2? Absolutely zero.
But the money and power are both fantastic as politicians still dream up new ways to shut down farming, mining, manufacturing, traveling, dreaming. Or even feeding people, as you can see from the tractor and truck protests in France, Spain, Italy, Nederlands, Germany, Poland, Canada.
But after a long honeymoon, the world is fed up with electric cars if only because they don’t work! And Australia has 20 million cars but the world has 1500 million, so we have 1/7 of 1% of the world’s cars. Why should we change?
It’s all a simple lie.
Real science, Physical Chemistry tells us CO2 is in extremely rapid equilibrium with the air at all times from the vast oceans with 98% of CO2 dissolved and the tiny atmosphere with 1/350th of the weight. So CO2 is constant across the planet to within 1% at all times. Now explain that with Climate Science and the Industrial Revolution. Then with 0.13% of the world’s vehicles and our travel distances and 98% of CO2 from overseas, why must Australians buy electric cars? Why is it government Climate policy?
Surely the Climate Rapture should have happened by now?
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I’m still pushing for the plan that various Australian states should build artificial reefs, not far off the coast.
It easy to do, the fish love it, and tourists will come to take a look. Best of all we can calculate the mass of coral and count that towards out “Nett Zero” target as Carbon sequestration. Then we can keep burning coal and it ends up at the bottom of ocean.
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Given the Great Barrier Reef is 2300km long and up to 250 km wide, the area of Germany, it’s hard to make it all a tourist attraction. And we are now responsible for the entire thing, apparently. After the previous owners.
And given the length covering 10 degrees of latitude and degrees of temperature change from one end to the other,summer to winter and inner reef to outer reef, it is really puzzling that it suffers so severely from temperature sensitivity and so Climate Change. Again our fault.
Perhaps we could train thousands of Great Barrier Gardeners? Not sure what they could do. The Crown of Thorns starfish does all the maintenance.
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When do we get the next scary story about the perfectly natural crown of thorns starfish?
That’s usually brought up when someone needs some more research funding….but I guess the “climate crisis” (sic) provides more than enough finding for everyone. Starfish scary stories no longer necessary.
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As I have recounted before, the Tahitians set the researchers straight only a decade ago.
The Tahitians celebrate the arrival of the Crown of Thorns starfish with ancient images and song. People hate pruning but it brings great renewal. The native women interrupted a presentation by the beach Climate scientists to say the scientists had it all wrong.
And the Starfish bring great renewal not only of the reef, the polyps, the structure, but all reef life, the fish, crustacea and the beaches. Normally Tahitian volcanic beaches are very fine black rutile. To me, awful stuff. The crunched coral makes for the white sandy atoll beaches everyone enjoys. Where the main island of Tahiti is not protected by coral, they are black, almost industrial.
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‘…the additional mining would devastate the planet’. Not really. Why use one of their lies to make a point? They can just throw it straight back at you.
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We have nowhere enough lithium and copper to convert 1.5Billion cars to electric. We would need to build and continue building 750x as many cars as the 20 million electric currently. The area of mining would be vastly more than it is today. Copper in particular is at its supply limit which is why it is so expensive and around the world railways are being disabled, even traffic lights in South Africa carted away for the copper cable. Cars are usually made from relatively cheap material which is currently in excess, not 500kg of lithium and 80kg of copper.
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Which raises an interesting point about the cost of materials for electric cars against conventional cars.
1.4 Ton petrol car. Steel $600 a ton. $840
This means you could conceivably manufacture a very small adequate very cheap car, like a Smart car or a Fiat or the original Mini. And the car provides free heating.
Electric car 2-3 ton+.
2 ton electric car Steel $1680
80 kg copper at $8400 a ton $672
63kg lithium at $37,000 a ton $2331
So unless lithium prices come down vastly, the profitability of electric cars for manufacturers is lower because of the cost of a huge amount of copper is very high and the cost of lithium is 4x that.
The presumption that mass manufacture will bring down the price is invalid. They are already in mass manufacture.
It means electric cars are not coming down in price with volume and likely to remain only available to the rich.
Who get on a kerosene powered aircraft for their holidays.
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TdeF, for the sake of accuracy, you might want to revise the amount of lithium in an EV.
For a Tesla Model S, it is claimed to contain:
There is also cobalt and nickel. Cobalt mostly comes from child labour in the paradise of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Your fundamental point doesn’t change though, EVs are still large consumers of expensive resources, more resources than are actually known to be available.
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Ok. I will revise. My mistake was assuming automatically that being largely lithium in volume, it was the bulk of the weight, but lithium is half the density of water, 1/5th the density of aluminum and 1/16th the density of steel. I should have checked Dr Google.
As an aside, it is fascinating to be building with metal which is the third on the Periodic table. Only 3 protons. 4 neutrons. Weight 7. Even carbon has weight 12.
And it raised a question. Yes, a lithium battery for a car is now available at a reasonable price.
“A mid-size lithium battery weighs just 10–15 lbs vs. over 30 lbs for a lead-acid!”
That’s a third of the weight at the same physical dimensions. The BMW850 has 2x120amp batteries, so 2x29kg to 2×12.5kg or a saving of 32kg! But for a deadly reputation for fires, I would buy a lithium battery next. I am puzzled as to why petrol cars still use lead acid batteries, except for the known fire risk of lithium.
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I bought a lithium replacement battery for the lead acid AGM in an Audi I owned a few years back. The lead acid was 24kg, and the lithium replacement 7kg…huge weight and size saving. But….the lithium battery went flat twice, which creates all sorts of problems with the modern car ( systems go nuts ). It appears that the BMS ( battery management system in battery ) and the BMS in the car, did not get on well.
The supplier of the lithium battery could not find out why things were going pear shaped, and I removed the lithium battery and obtained a refund and went back to a lead acid…at great cost, as I had given away the original lead acid battery.
It appears that unless the car is designed to have a lithium battery ( some are ) that problems can occur. Proceed with caution.
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David – whilst you might be right to some extent about the child labour – Congo shares Zambia’s Copperbelt where I started out as a geologist in mining. Whilst copper was the product – as the ore also contained plenty of cobalt, it was an important by-product which at the time didnt have too many outlets. I would guess that the mines are now flat out mining for copper to cover the increased demand and so that should also push up the production of cobalt to a global scale – and no child labour should be needed. I agree that no child labour should be involved but I doubt very much that it is significant in the scheme of things.
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And if the current very high price of copper is not enough incentive, it would have to soar to justify more mines or automation. That in turn would mean higher prices for EVs.
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Melbourne resident,
It would appear that there is only .5 to .25% of cobalt to copper concentrate . Since there is 6 -12 kg of cobalt in an EV battery , that’s a lot of concentrate to process . The process of mining and refining requires lots of energy which has to come from somewhere . If you remove “carbon based” energy from the mix , human labour is the “cheapest” alternative in most of Africa thus child labour for mining .
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Hi melbourne+resident
If you are in doubt, read Cobalt Red. Siddharth Kara is a fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at the Kennedy School. He has been researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking and child labour for 20 years. Rechargeable batteries are powered by cobalt mined by workers labouring in slave-like conditions in the Democratic Republic of Congo. There’s no such thing as a “clean” supply chain of cobalt from the country. In his new book, Cobalt Red, Kara writes that much of the DRC’s cobalt is being extracted by so-called “artisanal” miners — freelance workers who do extremely dangerous labour for the equivalent of just a few dollars a day. “There’s complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands,” he says. “Industrial mines, almost all of them, have artisanal miners working, digging in and around them, feeding cobalt into the formal supply chain.”
2000 men woman and children die each year in the cobalt mines
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Cobalt is an important alloying element in steels and nickel alloys as it provides high temperature performance. Using cobalt in batteries for useless cars increases costs for its important uses. Cobalt provides for faster charging in batteries.
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Update on Weight and costs in $US
Tesla S battery raw metal prices
lithium 62.6 kg @$37,000 ton = $2316
cobalt 14kg @$32,982 ton = $462
manganese 20kg @1,800 ton = $360
copper 80kg @ $8400 per ton = $672
Total $3810. There are big multipliers in processing these into parts.
And we are still missing the bulk of the 530kg finished weight.
A Tesla is looking more and more like a battery with wheels.
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No need for insurance to pay for funeral costs.
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Present EV design is a joke but lighter options are being built. Check out Skeleton Technologies Super Battery.
“https://1188159.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/1188159/02-DS-SuperBattery-D60-view.pdf”
(sorry,- the link button doesn’t work for me so you’ll have to cut and paste)
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Jo,
Can someone stop using the term Lawfare.
It seems like Lawfair.
I believe the left started it knowing that the casual listener would think that it means that charges against Trump is fair law.
It should be Warlaw or Mal law.
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This is the cheapest car available in India
Maruti Suzuki Alto 800 STD is a new by Maruti Suzuki, the price of Alto 800 STD in USA is USD 4,071
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TdeF,
Normally we think along similar lines, you and me, but I have to disagree on your additional mining would devastate the planet”.
As an exercise while you are in the naughty corner, why not calculate the present area affected by global mining, then estimate the future mining area to supply your needs for more material.
You simply have to look out the window of an aircraft to see how rare mines are, how little you see of them. The low hanging fruit shallow mines of the past will be replaced by underground mines that have negligible harm.
And much past “harm” has been fixed by we miners with expensive and highly effective restoration. Mines typically run out in a few decades, merely a pimple of time in the overall future of humanity.
Mines are not an enduring, permanent harm. I’d guess that a small mine, the area of the MCG, produces more benefit than the MCG. It is a matter of properly recognising true benefit as opposed to illusory (like getting pissed on a Saturday watching guys in shorts kicking a piece of pig skin around for your $50 ticket.)
Cheers. Geoff S
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Yes, I agree with you. Such is the case with the open cut lignite fields as in Victoria Easily remediated as well. The mining itself is not invasive. And I am not aware of any problem in the history of fracking.
But I would not whitewash the mining industry.
There is overburden and access to those mines, even though new roads are generally welcome and not built at public expense. But they can be through areas which are considered environmentally very sensitive.
Plus spoil heaps which are a real problem in some mining. Holding dams which have been known to collapse and devastate everyone downriver. This one by BHP just being settled a decade later.
It killed 19 people and devastated villages and swaths of countryside because of an avalanche of mud that contaminated hundreds of kilometres of waterways.
“Federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit demanding 155 billion real ($48.6 billion) in compensation from Samarco and its joint owners, BHP and the Brazilian miner Vale.”
I remember the tailings dam in PNG at the OK Tedi mine.
Or the terrible Aberfan disaster.
The oil leaks and the Exxon Valdez, although oil sludge is self healing over time, even if the well has to be capped somehow. As in the Gulf of Mexico.
And we keep learning. But in general the major risk taken in these mines is by the miners themselves who are braver than I have ever been. And every year there is an another amazing rescue.
But I cannot agree that it does not require regulation to avoid cowboys and vanishing operators. What we have now is regulation designed to frustrate and prevent mining. And that impoverishes everyone. Australia’s imports are funded almost entirely by mining and the people in Canberra want to stop both mining and agriculture. Which is fine for them because they generate zero income except by taxing everyone else for working. And we paid for their wind farms.
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And I still remember the mining of alluvial gold in California which you can sometimes see in movies or documentaries. High pressure water hoses to destroy the entire river bank. Very effective. Utterly destructive. But the land must have seemed infinite then where now California has 42 million people who depend on the few rivers and value the ecosystems. And they even dried up the Colorado river completely so that now only a trickle makes it to Baja California. It’s wrong to judge history by today’s standards but it has not all been good.
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And in Australia dams have been effectively banned for 60 years. Which is insane in such a large dry continent with low mountains. The tropical water must be captured, if only to control flooding but also to allow growing food supply and clean water. Unless you have infinite money and electrical power as in the UAE. For now.
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It’s the same closer to home. Look at the historical photos and paintings of the area around what is now Castlemaine in central Victoria.
Gold was discovered in 1851, and the Forest Creek diggings became the world’s richest ever shallow alluvial goldfield.
The whole area for miles around in every direction was soon completely denuded of trees and other vegetation, and all the topsoil blasted away by water cannons is by now washed down to The Coorong.
The remaining clay and rock was extensively turned over, with mineshafts all over the place.
That’s why it’s all scrubby regrowth there, no depth of topsoil, and so much bare clay, gravel, and rocky reefs.
The whole area is a slowly recovering, vast, unregenerated mining site.
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.?.. was that a. “sarc” comment, ?..or areyou just turning a blind eye to the raft of issues that are acknowledged to be involved with fracking ?
…not the least being quake propogation and ground water contamination.
BUT… current fracking tech is proving to be much safer.
00
About a year ago I made a prediction to myself that EV’s would last about 5 years before the whole lunatic scheme failed….the non solution to a non problem. This post from Jo makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside…a lunatic left brain fart of an idea to change the climate is failing and failing badly. Only 4 years to go before my prediction probably comes true.
However, what will the lunatic Left do to try and ” make ” EV’s work ? I can hardly wait to see the next mad instalment of leftist ideology and utter madness.
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EVs are being legislated or more importantly non EVs are being banned.
Why is the question? They make no economic sense, except for Chinese government exports.
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… railway vehicles and urban road small hybrid EVs.
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Hybrids are the best of both worlds when the balance is right, what they call mild hybrid.
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Glenn:
If you want a lunatic left view on EVs try The Electric Viking on youtube. Apparently from a bloke in Newcastle (NSW).
I don’t recommend it you have a degree of commonsense but there it is but use with caution – I tried a few times and ran out of derision. Every thing is wonderful, new batteries will come real soon etc.**
Lately however he seems (from the titles only) to have to mention all the EVs companies going broke.
**I first read about that in the 1970’s. Along with the caution that packing more chemical energy would make the battery less stable.
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I guess this is the fairly predictable result of trying to force a bad idea onto consumers rather making something such a good idea they clamour for it.
Ideology and dogma may still win, bit I hope the pendulum is swing back to something sensible like EVs as niche cars and a wider penetration of hybrids and fuel efficient ICE cars.
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Jo, aren’t the Feds adopting Euro emissions standards, not US ones?
Americans would never accept a reduction in the size of their bigger cars, and neither should Australians.
And I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever that pretend-conservative Dutton would stick to any commitment to remove Euro 6d.
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Could be referring to Kalifornia standards which are way worse?
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Jo, aren’t the Feds adopting Euro emissions standards, not US ones?
Fair question David. I have certainly accused the ALP of being tools to help European car makers sell more cars here. The article I was quoting today said “USA”.
But which came first?
The emissions limits in the US started in about 2000 but at the time were set up by the car industry I believe, and have since morphed into something else.
I suspect we’re all (US/UK/EU/Aus) adopting the WEF “laws” now…
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A total of 750,789 US customers opted for Ford F-Series pick-up trucks in 2023 – the top selling vehicle in the USA
In Australia in 2023 the top selling vehicle was the Ford Ranger ute (63,356).
F150s are now on sale in Australia – buy one for the fun of triggering Lefties!
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The disaster of forcibly imposing EVs is yet further proof that politicians should not be allowed to make scientific or engineering decisions (or any important decisions for that matter, unless they can demonstrate a certain understanding of a particular area – few politicians would pass such a test).
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David Maddison,
Who will make the decisions then? The last thing I want to see is decisions outsourced to some “independent body” (IOW unaccountable) made up of academics and celebrity scientists.
Once upon a time, most of our politicians and even our bureaucrats (whether competent or not) were motivated by high-minded thoughts — what will history say about me, that sort of thing — but now it appears to come down to power and money. No qualms about selling out the country if it seems to be in their selfish interests. Likewise the universities have turned venal. I wish you would turn your mind and considerable energy to the problem of getting these people’s incentives aligned with the interests of the country.
Here’s a thought: how would the political ladder change if we added just one new rule: once you’ve served in one branch of government (local, state, federal; representative or bureaucrat) you are not permitted to serve in any other branch? That might encourage a little more commitment to the job at hand. It might also have discouraged terrible ideas like the states supporting the federally run national electricity market.
90
Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians worked to serve the people that elected them and not a fascist organisation in Davos? As we have a massive problem with illegal immigrants – as well as medieval muslims arriving legally – when talk turns to ending our participation in international refugee treaties we get lefties whining about how it would affect how the UK is viewed on the international stage. Sorry, but who cares about that in their daily lives? And last night we had the posturing incompetent fascists of the Scottish National Party – led by a muslim – wasting Parliamentary time with a debate calling for Israel to cease fire in Gaza as well as wasting taxpayers money as the police had to control a mob of jew-hating pro-Palestine demonstraters outside. Quite rightly, why would Israel take any notice?
30
I only hope this continues to derail all the left wing lunacy within the OECD countries and people start to wake up by the time they vote again.
We’ll know a bit more after the by election in VIC and a loss for Labor would be very good news and hopefully some sanity will start to clean out the weeds. Who knows?
But BO Bowen hasn’t got a clue and let’s hope he continues to stuff up and drags the rest of the Labor party with him.
200
In Victoria the LNP is a pathetic organisation of nothing burgers. For the sake of Victorians keep the ALP in place for the time being. A change at this stage would be disastrous.
A government comprising more than 20 Joe Biden’s could never work!
131
Tragically true.
Keep the crims in power, because the opposition is in disarray?
What’s the difference? We have had disastrous since the first day Andrews was elected!
At this stage it’s not only Biden who is a puppet, the whole Western World is governed by globalist-owned stooges.
Remember Schwab? “Ve haf successfully penetrated ze kabinets of ze Vorld”
You don’t get to be considered for e̶l̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ appointment as a candidate for the job if you’re not already owned.
190
The Victorian Lib faction of the Uniparty is at least as bad as Labor and in many cases even more Leftist and more woke.
E.g.
Nonsense like this:
That was far worse than Labor’s target.
And:
All meaningless drivel by uninformed, unrducated fools that know nothing and lack critical thinking skills.
At the very best, Libs are only slightly less bad than the Labor/Green faction of the Uniparty.
We need to support conservative-oriented parties:
United Australia Party (look up Senator Babet)
Libertarian Party
One Nation
190
The state debt, now over $160 billion, companies unwilling to invest money in Victoria, suggest bad times for Victorians, reminiscent of the shambolic Cain/Kirner regime of spendaholics, which drove so many Victorians to emigrate north.
For current residents, watchout. If you intend investing locally, that debt is effectively yours, as property taxes is likely the only large source of revenue, that the govt has not fully exploited. Your may not pay land tax now, but perhaps the next thing to happen, might be yearly taxes on houses over $3 million, or $2 million, or whatever it takes.
Note for Labour voters. Warfare against higher earners might be what you cherish, but driving out existing high tax payers may fill your hearts with joy, but then you will have to pay the taxes and may not have a job. Keynesian economics, does not work if everybody is broke.
100
Do not forget to factor in “rent” to the local Aboriginal Land Council – as the Communist Victoria Goverment has ignored Albo’s failed (I would say successful) referendum and is pushing ahead with “Truth (aka a pack of lies) and “Treaty” (aka “Pay the Rent”).
70
Meanwhile in the real world {If the term can be applied to the People’s Republic of Victoriastan}
https://ectltd.com.au/alinta-drops-its-electricity-price-thanks-to-brown-coal/
50
Agreed, and add Australian Citizens Party to that list.
I just wish the 4 of them could put egos & personal ambition aside, form a large conservative coalition with a chance to form government and give us a genuinely conservative alternative to vote for. Maybe the Nats would be inspired come across too!
80
At this stage the old saying “ suck it up “ applies. Currently there is no opposition.
If that opposition were to gain power the situation will deteriorate as they have more leftist policies than the actual left do!
Any suggestions?
80
We need to support conservative-oriented parties:
United Australia Party (look up Senator Babet)
Libertarian Party
One Nation
130
David,
They are all trying to win a popularity competition run by the MSM . Awareness is building that this is happening and this situation with EV’s indicates that. Virtue signaling is no use in the real world and reality is coming and it will reveal this . Those who are prepared for the coming situation will survive it best . Don’t trust democracy (voting) to save us – it’s already in trouble and trust in it is eroding rapidly .
40
United Australia Party, formerly Palmer United Party (PUP). I got a new dog, I changed his name, but it is still the same dog.
You have found yourself the world’s only honest real-estate agent, lucky you. The tail doesn’t wag the dog!
The head is Clive Palmer, the money is Clive Palmer. Palmer has shown time and time again he is in it to look after number 1, feather his own nest.
There is not an honest bone in Palmers body, and Babet will tow the party line.
Palmer used the freedom rallies as his political campaign platform.
Babet will not be running in 26 as he believes Senators should only serve one term.
The extraordinary Gore-Palmer drama began about 10 weeks ago when the quietly spoken but very effective former Australian Conservation Foundation head, Don Henry, approached a former adviser to Tony Windsor, John Clements, to ask whether he could open a line of communication with Clive Palmer.
Henry is an international board member of Gore’s “climate reality project”. Clements and Windsor had struck up a friendly relationship with Palmer during the last parliament. Palmer’s three senators held the key to the future of most of Australia’s existing climate change legislation. It was an unusual, but potentially powerful, mix.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/26/al-gore-and-clive-palmer-behind-the-scenes-of-an-unlikely-bromance
34
Aren’t you forgetting that the Bye-election in Victoria (Dunkley) is a Federal seat and the member sits in the Federal Parliament.
Surely the local Liberal candidate can give them a run.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/melbourne-drive/liberal-dunkley-candidate-election-interview/103497174
Nice to hear the usual leftwing censorious hecklers in the background slanging their anti-democratic rubbish.
00
The lunatic Leftist fake “consensus” “science” will end if the US has an honest election and Donald Trump is allowed to be re-elected.
182
Sadly that is a very big “if”.
70
BOB arrogantly says “It would “not be in the public interest” to release modelling showing how much car prices would increase under proposed new carbon emissions standards, the Albanese government has told parliament.”
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth! The man is a nincompoop
200
Why aren’t the Liberals, the fake conservative faction of the Uniparty, demanding its release or at least doing a freedom from information request?
On the subject of modelling, do any politicians or senior public serpent, even ones who identify as fake “scientists” at CSIRO or BoM, even understand what modelling is and models have to be validated with real world data before they can be used for predictive purposes? At least they did when I learned this stuff, back in the day.
I’m afraid “modelling” has just become a woke Leftist buzz word and used by people who have no clue what it is.
180
They use “modelling”; they mean “estimates”.
20
“They use “modelling”; they mean “estimates”.”
Actually Guesstimates.
00
Unbelievable that studies using the loony RCP 8.5 have increased from 17,000 in 2020 to over 45,000 in just the last 4 years.
Here’s Dr Pielke jnr’s latest update and the Biden US loonies are still leading the pack.
But try and explain this to the average voter and you’ll start to see the size of the BS and lunacy that now seems to encompass so much of their so called climate science.
Just unbelievable but true and it goes on and on and is still going strong in 2024.
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-unstoppable-momentum-of-outdated-c2f
100
Albo, Bowen & Biden. Makes the three stooges look intelligent.
160
This is Albo, Bowen and Biden all trying to think.
https://youtu.be/YTVw-QHy5mQ (3 sec)
60
A blind man could have seen this coming from years ago. I did.
100
I can’t resist. That’s unfortunate. Still you are coping.
60
A highly intelligent man could have seen this coming from years ago. I DID. 🙂
70
Blind Man Files Lawsuit Against Tesla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC_Hq3Zss0o&ab_channel=CBSPittsburgh
40
As usual with the Left, it’s “do as I say, not do as I do”.
I also once posted a Rebel News video with an interview with a limousine driver at the WEF Davos meeting explaining that the VIPs only get chauffeured in ICE vehicles, not EVs.
160
Now selling like hot cakes in Australia – but not the EV Lightning version
What is the wait time for the Ford F-150 in Australia?
70
Seems you need a real engine to lug around all that armour plating and air tanks, something an anaemic battery car would die trying to do.
30
It’s nothing new in car world. A little bigger maybe, but not new. In the 90’s we were all supposed to put LPG in our cars. Try to find an LPG pump now.
Then Little Johnny decided we all had to burn sugar. That worked well.
In Europe they decided that filthy diesel engines were the way to go, because apparently nobody told them about the carcinogens. Diesels, diesels everywhere. Until… not.
Now it’s batteries. Until it won’t be.
C’est la vie in our postmodern socialist dictatorships.
170
Howard and the ethanol subsidies are a disgrace. I assume they are still ongoing.
90
David, the only good thing about the ethanol industry in Australia is that it helped at a time when sugar prices weren’t that flash. Hence, it probably has assisted “some” sugar farmers incomes in our northern areas. So, not unlike the corn ethanol industry in the US. The US had a glut of corn because they’e so efficient and the ethanol industry there has helped to buffer low crop prices. So, politicians (like John Howard) can then use that as cover for their schemes to harvest votes in rural areas. In the US the rural vote is way more important that it is in Australia but sugar industry ethanol scheme possibly helps the LNP vote in Qld? Almost the same as Turnbull giving hundreds of millions of $ to some vague Great Barrier Reef group to again, harvest votes. Don’t you hate poltics?
60
He left home at age 32?!! And we let him be our Prime Minister? John Gorton was off fighting the Japs when he was 30.
50
He was 30 in 1969. No shortage of wars that year.
14
One benefit of the squeeze towards EVs is battery development. Currently I operate an Optima “Swiss-roll” style starter battery in my 4.2 diesel. It’s only a 50AmpHour but punches out the required 800 Cold Cranking Amps. I’ve ordered a new hybrid battery which contains a 25 AmpHr LiFe PO4 battery paralleled with 6 Maxwell super capacitors.
There are many advantages to hybrid batteries.
1) Last 5 to 10X longer than lead equivalent.
2) Weigh a little over half of the lead equivalent.
3) Work well at minus 5ºC
4) Recharge in ~60 seconds.
5) Excellent for cars which have stop/start traffic features.
Hopefully, the death of EVs will push us to develop the ICE to greater heights.
10
Sounds good, may I ask – what are they a hybrid of??
20
True hybrid capacitor/batteries (SkelTech Super Battery) are rolled up like a capacitor but have anode and cathode with about 10 minutes of stored energy. What I’m looking at is simply a small battery with capacitors doing the bulk of the cranking work. The beauty of using a LiFe PO4 battery is that 90% of a 25AmpHour battery is useable. Typical lead/acids suffer damage when run down to even 75% capacity and if you leave your lights on and run your battery down to 10% and it will never recover fully.
10
Did I read Jo’s chart correctly? “Lithium Carbonate”? The alleged wonder substance, lithium salt or Li2, is partly made-up of the devil’s brew, carbonic acid or CO3? Chemistry was never my high-point, so had to do a little re-searching:
1948 – Li2CO3 began being used as a psychiatric medication, although industrial lithium carbonate contains toxic heavy metals; it’s added to fireworks to provide a ‘red’ colour; its boiling point is 1,300*C; its natural form is known as zebuyelite. And yet it contains the dreaded carbonic acid!
/sarc (just in case).
70
Ultimately the smelting of most metals, the removal of oxygen from oxides is done with carbon, producing dreaded CO2. Others are sulphides and chlorides, but they usually go this route involving CO2. So to ban CO2 production with steel and other metals and concrete is nuts. The Safeguard Mechanism (2023) requires a reduction in CO2 output by 5% a year for 7 years. That’s fine but it means buying Australian Carbon Credits or going broke. So the steel and concrete people are trying quietly to get this reduced to a secret 1%. I do not know about the lead, zinc, nickel, lithium people, but it shows you have absolutely crazy the current punitive legislation is.
By the way, all transport, manufacturing, farming is subject to the same appalling tax. The Trans Tasman Ferry for example. Or the MMBW, for the processing of sewage.
We Australians have legislated the shutting down of the entire country or at the very least a massive carbon tax on all industries, the 250 ‘biggest polluters’. Has anyone thought this through?
And the only way to reduce sewage punitive taxes is for all Australians to eat 35% less. Are you ready for that?
90
Lithium is a mood stabilising medicine used to treat certain mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder.
Lithium may need to be taken for a long period of time — do not suddenly stop taking it without speaking to your doctor.
Short-term side effects can include nausea and diarrhoea, muscle weakness or a dazed feeling.
A long-term side effect can be weight gain.
Too much and you will die.
40
The main danger is that EVs will outcompete for access to lithium when there are many folk on it for mental problems.
20
There’s this thing called the internet and its naughty offspring called social media. When used selectively and if you follow the right people it’s a great source of information. In Australia you can use the internet/ social media to observe trends in the Northern Hemisphere which is usually 6 months ahead due to seasonal differences. Certainly true for COVID and many other topics, but apparently the people who run this country are severely incurious regards this information source. So, our politicians and bureaucrats are ploughing ahead with Net Zero even though there is now ample evidence from overseas that wind/solar doesn’t work, EV’s don’t work, ESG is losing favour, coal/ gas/oil are still kings in the energy field and now that the EV market is showing signs of tanking. But it’s not only government to blame. Yesterday received annual report from Rio Tinto ( got some shares )via email from Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm. The email contained RIO’s Climate Change report for 2023, with Jakob’s final idiotic comment “”We will continue paying attractive dividends and investing in the long-term strength of our business as we grow in the materials needed for a decarbonising world.”
90
Energy minister Chris Bowen, against the odds, is blowing our money and reputation on backing EVCAR in a three-legged race in the energy futures. EVCAR is being scratched everywhere except Australia where Chris Bowen, the energy bookie is still flogging dead horse Lithium powered Beetlebomb. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/54/be/6c/54be6c078139989155f6ff06d881f1f8.jpg
50
Who have been the “Early Adopters” of EVs in Australia?
Apart from government agencies I would say the “Wealthy Woke” who live in Teal suburbs and have two car garages with a new Tesla and and an ICE BMW or Merc.
The Telsa is used to virtue signal while dropping the kids off at a private school and then going shopping (being recharged overnight in the said garage) while the ICE BMW or Merc is used for longer trips.
This is a limited market when utes are the top three selling cars in Australia.
Also see my post on the other thread about EVs in China stopping working when the manufacturer went bankrupt!
EVs are computers on wheels with bigger batteries
150
When discussing the number of EVs registered in each reporting period what is never mentioned is tax-free government purchases and leasing at all three levels, Federal, state and Local Councils.
Since 2016 leasing firms have been handed funds to promote EV to their fleet operator clients, “company cars”, and many EVs of the not many on Australian roads are not pwned by the drivers.
It would be interesting to see private sales and split between EV and Hybrid.
40
I often wonder if the non plug-in hybrid is the ideal vehicle built ‘down-spect’ for capital cities. It’s Epower is self contained and it only needs to take over the take-off and heavy acceleration aspects of the vehicle. It could reduce a lot of the real pollutants from vehicles in heavily built-up areas. One would see them perhaps as not much more than covered scooters. There used to be little 2 person vehicles with ICE but they disappeared. That was in the 60’s when the cities weren’t so densely populated. The problem is, its all cost, reduced safety and space to shelter.
The problem with the current ideas around EVs is they are government ordained, all replacing enforced technology. One would imagine with a little thought about city roads and commuting, the EV technology especially with a safer battery system, could find a niche market in the cities and even towns. Just get rid of the enforcement ideas and let some entrepreneurs flourish.
30
This is a good hour to look at the experiment on King Island: https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
The generator is shut down because wind and solar are producing so much power that up to 800 KW is being exhausted in the “resistor”.
Please look now as this offer will not last long and may not be repeated.
I have been checking for about two months and today is the first jackpot!
50
Electric motors no problem, pity about battery technology and related issues.
40
Minister Bowen cannot be as stupid as his comments often suggest?
In this example to save us money on fuel costs by claiming to improve fuel consumption motorists will be charged far more for ICEV and therefore before any saving could begin the premium price would have paid for a lot of fuel to break even on cost.
30
He cannot get much stupider than he already is, but he’s giving it a bloody good go.
80
He did study Economics. And while some economists have my respect, so often they are completely wrong but imbued with a sense of passionate certainty which can only come from believing something despite the patent reality. And that is the basis of most religions. It can transform mild incompetence into catastrophic decision making.
50
A prerequisite for becoming a politician.
50
I heard a Labor luminary this week , it may have been Richo on Paul Murray’s Sky program, saying Bowen is quite bright and aware. It would appear then that he is totally ideologically blind or, in the fashion of real narcissists, he is incapable by personality to accept he is wrong. He is the epitome of leading a government run business. They usually fail spectacularly! The problem here is, the business that fails under Bowen is the Energy system, and that takes down the Australian economy and most people living within it.
40
All this is good news.
However, I am very concerned that the Lib/Nats won’t run with it.
They’ve got their own “Greenies” in the party, and they aren’t giving up.
What I would like to see, and I believe it will be an overwhelming election winner, is for Dutton to say, “We are abandoning ALL attempts to reduce Australian emissions for five years. (My lonely reader may pick another time if he wishes)
After that time, we will see what the rest of the world has done, and make decisions then.”
He can’t go in half hearted. I fear he will diddle with the numbers. Say 13% instead of 15%, or extend something another year.
The L/Ns never, ever seem to realise that there are Australians who will never, ever vote for them.
Yet, they continue to go on the ABC with the stupid thought that they can sway these people their way. And, as it is known, their very base drifts away.
A commentor said above that Albanese was the Coalition’s greatest gift. Maybe so, but there are many who rather like the slimy bastard, especially now that he’s trying to prove he’s human with his personal life.
Bowen is the greatest gift! He’s slimier, more unlikable and stupider than Albanese.
Add in Wong, all the front bench, all the actors from The Voice, and there is indeed a target rich environment, if only they attack it.
70
Yes they do have their left leaning faction or Liberals In Name Only (LINO left), but from what I have heard they are losing influence and numbers and the centre to centre right are regaining control.
Noting that Labor have many factions including the far left now again dominating the party and the Labor governments. But the far more sensible Labor centre left are fighting back like the Liberals sensible side.
PM Albanese and others are far left faction, he and various other MPs are followers of the late Russian revolutionary Marxist Leon Trotsky, party insiders refer to Albo as a “Trot”.
It is always ignored that when PM Morrison attended the COP in Glasgow he was pushed hard by UK PM Johnson, POTUS Biden and others including UN IPCC to sign an agreement for net zero emissions, a kind of blackmail. But he resisted and instead said that Australia would have “an aspirational goal” but subject to developments of new technologies and without damaging the economy. Protecting the economy first and foremost has been Coalition policy since the Howard Government signed the Kyoto Japan Climate Conference Agreement and emissions reduction target in 1997.
Climate hoax politics is complicated because it has international pressure as well as national pressure being applied to follow the mob.
60
” … the unexpected fall in EV orders. ”
This makes me wonder when the first post or comment was clicked into being saying the great surge in EV adoption was a fairy tale. I bolded the term unexpected because I and many others have expected way less interest in EVs than most elites, media, and AGW activists. Not to mention major auto companies other than Toyota.
70
The same principle works in most businesses. Regardless of anything else, if governments that rule most of your markets determine there will be absolute change in what will be allowed to be marketed and in a short time frame, then businesses must adapt or fail. The ideology outweighs any logic, and if logic becomes a problem the governments simply introduce the mis/disinformation censorship to permit government only to state what is ‘truth’.
The problem the governments have is the market for the replacement product ie VOTERS, is failing and government remedy to force the issue is hugely expensive to the VOTERS. That’s a total loss-loss for these ‘democratic’ governments. Governments are now becoming trapped by the ideology using CO2 theory as the humans-on-planet(s) annihilator. Resistance and rebuke is coming from the people the governments can least afford to antagonise. In energy this week Origin fought back, and in the naval yards, BAE refuted Albo’s claim it had blown out the costs of the Hunter Class frigates. The longer this goes on the more apparent are the lies. That will be lethal for these governments.
10
Breitbart reported this issue differently in an election year as a stunt to minimize nationwide push back on EVs and vote losses. Nothing more. They hope their unrestricted abortion approach will win votes but now are running scared especially that their stand on EVs and Israel will cost votes.
As expected, their insane zero borders policy now means they are wedged by ‘Michigan Muslims’ and anxious to end the consequences of the Middle East War with Hamas. We see the same effect in the UK, where vote losses in the coming election means having to demand Hamas win. Pushing the brake on EV laws is just temporary. Biden and friends want to shut down the US. These are the enemies within.
80
It also means their attempts to shut down Trump are failing. So now they have to punch down harder. Put him in Jail if possible and cut off his ability and that of his children to pay the bills. EVs like migration are a cornerstone of the Democratic/WEF/EU plan to wreck the West. But you have to wonder if that will make him a martyr like Imran Khan. It must be something for the Biden White House to own the Department of Justice and all of Washington/New York including the juries.
60
A number of MSM stories today about a new “water battery” from RMIT and while it’s early days they’ve had some initial success.
But it could take 5 to 10 years before these batteries could power a house or an EV and a lot of research and testing to come before we’ll know whether they will ever do the job.
And it’s a long way from a button battery to something that will power an EV or your home or …..?
But I wouldn’t abandon your ICE car yet.
https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2024/feb/water-battery
30
Does RMIT use the title “Distinguished Professor” now?
10
A “water battery”?
Surely a “Beer Battery” would get much more public inetrest!
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/beer-battery-renewable-energy-germany-b2309575.html
20
That’s the old Irish concept of an endless or renewable bottle of beer. When the genie asked what he wanted for this second and third wish, Paddy said he would have two more bottles.
40
probably to send to friends
11
Being Irish, I didn’t think of that.
20
In the linked-to article, Magnesium, Zinc, and Bismuth are specifically mentioned. Others are implied.
In the 1970s, I toured a Zinc smelter in northern Idaho. It was quite a dirty place and the surrounding countryside was denuded. In anticipation of closure the company was growing thousands of trees for re-vegetation purposes.
I wonder if any of these researchers ever visit the sources of the elements, that is, the mines and smelters.
The term “water battery” is propaganda and the potential for this being a major addition to propulsion is close to Zero. That is a guess, by the way.
10
Try 50 years, the Lithium-ion battery was invented by NASA in 1965, the fist applications appeared on the early 1990’s (Motorola), it achieved commercial production in the 2000’s and mass production in the 2010’s.
Ref. my comment #34.
10
Labor, using the ideologue Bowen to sow the seeds of its own demise next election, is now fertilising the plant.
It will probably take another 6months for Australians to suffer enough pain to wake up as to the causes of their COL
pain and falling living standards to throw this government out.
Has there ever been a government so ideologically fixated on policies of destruction that it ignores all contrarian moves happening overseas in the nations that sold Labor and the left extremes the policies on climate in the first place. It’s ignored the Sri Lankan experience on banning artificial fertilizers. It’s ignored the farmer reactions to solar panels and Turbines. It’s ignored the EU reaction to banning fossil fuels and now actually chasing them. It’s ignoring the failure of EV’s and the abandonment of policies to enforce their adoption. This list will grow and people will be forced to react negatively and that is why we get the Disinformation censorship bill coming soon. Blogs like this must be shut down in red Australia.
60
I’m trying hard not to smirk after reading about the green dreams dying in a ditch somewhere.
30
I think this is just the larvae phase.
They resurrect as zombies*.
Their brains having been cannibalized for procreation.
The larvae infest universities and implant in new host brains.
Perpetuating the reproduction cycle.
*(This the Butterfly phase where they migrate annually to Davos in private jets.)
They return to wipe that smirk off your face.
They intend to eat your car no matter what how it’s powered.
11
No wonder Australia is in the shit, nobody has any pride in things that made us great. Nobody pays attention to things that matter. It’s the small things which when put together give us purpose and pride.
Joanne, please adjust the photo in this article so that tha AUSTRALIAN FLAG is flying right way up, not upside down
21
Flying a flag upside down is not a sign of disrespect, it’s an internationally recognized sign of distress.
100
Don’t despair.
You have your own Continent. (We have a POTUS that is incontinent.)
Soon you’ll also have an American submarine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)
40
Screen hatches optional. . . .
20
Sent to me by sms, probably viral as such things are.
“Imagine we lived in a world where all cars were EVs. And then along comes a new invention, the “Internal Combustion Engine”!
Think how well they would sell: A vehicle half the weight, half the price that will
almost quarter the damage done to the road.
A vehicle which can be refuelled in 1/10th of the time and has a range of up to 4 times the distance
in all weather conditions. And in the outback you could double the range. Refuel instantly anywhere.
No random fires. And most damage easily repaired.
It does not rely on the environmentally damaging use of non-renewable
rare earth elements to power it, and uses far less steel and other materials.
Free and simple cabin heating in the coldest winter and even really cold air in summer, at little change to range.
Just think how excited people would be for such technology. It would sell like hot cakes!”
131
Model T Ford ICEV 1908.
20
From just below the AU Flag: ” EVs now make up about 7 per cent of the US car fleet.”
Reasonably true except there is extreme variation by state:
https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10962
CA, FL, & TX have many, some other states hardly show.
Note the comment:
The scale of the axis changes at 200,000 to make it easier to see the other states.
30
Probably the weathiest states have the most EVs.
10
There is a simple metric that applies to all changes in technology fairly consistently.
A new technology will completely replace older tech within 50 – 70 years, if it hasn’t by then it never will. Petrol cars replaced horses in 70 years, 1886 – 1950’s Airplanes replaced passenger liners in 70 years, 1903 – 1970’s Computers replaced all other forms of calculating in 50 years, 1944 – 1990’s The electric car was invented in 1846, 178 years ago, 40 years before the petrol car and it has failed to achieve any significant market penetration let alone replacement.
There will still be fossil fuel vehicles for sale in 2050 and probably way beyond that.
60
Electric cars cost too much and are too inconvenient. All the replacement technologies you list were an improvement on the old tech. I don’t call the charging times of EVs an improvement. Plus EVs cost too much to begin with and resale values are already hurting as more people become aware of replacement battery costs. EVs need to retail at AUD 30K or less and be a viable alternative to an equivalent ICE (size and features). This is why adoption of EVs is falling short.
30
Early electric cars appeared then disappeared, the problem then as now was the battery.
40
some folks liked the electric cars because other cars required someone to crank the engine to get it started.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/DArvPMlxHeQ/hqdefault.jpg
This could result in a broken hand or wrist.
Invention of the electric starter changed this. Searchup – – –
Charles Kettering, head of research and development for General Motors
10
Hi Jo,
Re #31
In USA I agree with you. In Aus, not so sure. See attached. https://www.pmc.gov.au/honours-and-symbols/australian-national-symbols/australian-national-flag/australian-national-flag-0
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Alternatively, according to the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee:
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Seems to me that at least 60% of Australians would agree with Jo’s usage. Extreme distress at the anti-Australian “leadership” we’re experiencing.
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Haven’t checked the link, but probably similar to the flag etiquette around flying half mast.
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The amusing thing about EVs is that the greatest deterrent to buying a new one is to be a past owner of one.
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ABC tonight was saying the nickel price drop was due to a global glut in supply. Australian mines revenue mainly affected by high supply from Indonesia.
I don’t recall any mention of *why* there was a glut in global supply.
A slump in EV battery demand sounds like it’s part of the reason.
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Nickel is different to lithium Andrew. Indonesia has built large nickel smelters and that has increased the nickel supply. Nickel is also used in many areas outside EV’s/
“The world’s biggest miner reported an almost 90% drop in net income after cheap Indonesian nickel, key for EVs, sends prices cratering”
https://fortune.com/asia/2024/02/20/bhp-group-worlds-biggest-miner-reports-drop-net-income-cheap-indonesian-nickel-australia/
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/indonesias-nickel-supremacy-chinas-backing-and-australias-decline/
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I have no doubt that competitively priced alongside equivalent size ICEV that an EV for city and suburban/town transport would be worthwhile considering, if only for the zero exhaust emissions and reducing pollution.
However the retail price gap is too high at present and then consider the insurance, faster depreciation of value because of battery pack and range shrinkage as each year passes, and replacement cost. Then consider the risks of exothermic reaction inferno fires.
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“zero”?
“reducing”?
The exhaust emissions and the pollution are not zero or reduced.
They’re displaced. Out of sight.
They’re no longer happening at the tailpipe, they’re happening during the generation & transport of the electricity, and during the mining & manufacture. Also of course, the volumes of highly toxic atmospheric pollution and groundwater runoff from the “exothermic reaction inferno fires” you mention, the thermal runaways associated with these contraptions.
https://www.allianz.com.au/car-insurance/articles/thermal-runaway-evs.html
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