A sign in Rockhampton. Where do they mention the fine though? | Photo by RegionalQueenslander
Block a sacred weather-changing EV from a charging point and you may have to sell your car
Feel the fear. The whole EV fantasy is coming undone as people miss planes, get stuck in cars, or ruin holidays because their battery is flat. There aren’t enough chargers, and charging is slow. In abject desperation, some Australian states are slapping monster fines on to make inadequate infrastructure stretch further, or because they realize how vulnerable they are to a protest campaign. Either that or they are actually trying to finance the transition to NetZero through parking fines. Call it a secret subsidy…
Victorians may be hit with a $370 fine if they drive a normal car and accidentally park it in an EV charging spot, thus depriving a sacred EV user of the chance to top up. You might think that’s wildly out of proportion — it’s only $100 less than if you recklessly run a red light. But it’s nothing compared to what NSW, Queensland and the ACT are doing. Drivers in these states who make the same mistake could end up paying, respectively, a blistering $2,200, $2,875, or $3,200.
It’s just climate maths at work isn’t it? Take any normal number and extrapolate to bankruptcy.
How long would I have to spend in jail for non-payment, I wonder?
Drivers face steep fines for parking non-electric vehicles in electric vehicle charging stations
by Someone at The ABC
So it’s written in the road rules but “little known”?
The fines, some of them added to road rules late last year, range from $3,200 in the Australian Capital Territory to $369 in Victoria.
Drivers could be fined as much as $3,200 for parking in spaces for electric vehicles as part of little-known penalties introduced in four states and territories.
Remember when they said EV charging would be fast and convenient, and it would be easy to build a network of chargers? Then they found out the lack of EV charging spaces is threatening their whole fantasy transition…
But experts say the heavy penalties are important to encourage electric vehicle adoption and prevent drivers doing the equivalent of parking “in front of a fuel bowser”.
Yes, because lots of people accidentally park in front of fuel bowsers and go shopping, right? Lots, as in — absolutely no one, ever. Maybe because fuel bowsers aren’t sometimes placed in what used to be normal parking spots.
| Photo by Mariordo of a charging station in Costa Rica.
You might be ICE-ing a climate warrior…
Apply a malignant acronym, and suddenly these car drivers who park in a spot with a charger sound like terrorists or a drug gang:
The fines apply to drivers who leave petrol or diesel vehicles in spaces designated for electric cars, in an act known as “ICE-ing” for its use of internal combustion engine cars.
So EV drivers need another subsidy then?
NSW Metropolitan Roads Minister Natalie Ward said the government added the offence to “support the transition to electric vehicles on our roads”.
“To make sure we keep the community moving forward, we want electric vehicle drivers to have access to charging stations when they are on offer,” she said.
It’s the sense of entitlement that shines like leaders of a weather cult:
Australian Electric Vehicle Association national president Chris Jones said while the penalties for blocking infrastructure were high, they were necessary to educate members of the public who may not have considered the repercussions.
People who aren’t driving EV’s must be really really stupid, yeah? In Chris Jones’ vision, the sort of fine that stops dumb punters running a red light needs to be five or ten times bigger so they understand how they are threatening the planet, or at least, threatening his plans to sell more EV’s.
Imagine if EV cars were a personal luxury, doing almost nothing of benefit to society, and everyone was expected to learn new rules, avoid their parking spaces, and practically go to jail if they made a mistake?
Electric Vehicle Council policy head Jake Whitehead said the fines sent “a very clear and strong signal”.
But he said greater education may be needed for petrol car drivers who encountered chargers added to existing car parks, as well as new electric vehicle drivers who did not recognise the need to vacate charging locations for other drivers as soon as practical.
At least they recognise that some EV drivers also haven’t read and memorized Labor’s Powering Australia Plan either. Nor, after being sold sunshine on stilts, have they figured out that the rushed EV-transition is doomed to run up hard against the brutal reality of charging times and access to kilowatts.
Imagine how inconvenient it would be as an electric car owner to have to return to your car from shopping or a business lunch because the car’s finished charging and you need to park it somewhere else or face a $3,000 fine? Don’t worry, there will be a phone App for that soon, so your car can call you.
The cult confuses “want” with “need”:
“Every charger available is critical and valuable to the fleet of 80,000-odd EVs in the country, and we need to make sure they’re not blocked, either intentionally or accidentally,” he said.
“There are genuine mistakes made by some people, but we need to have a broad recognition across society that these chargers need to be available to EVs so we can have more on our roads.”
Every charger is critical to keep their fantasy alive…
Where I have seen public chargers they often put them in premium locations (e.g. near an entrance to a shopping mall like in Chadstone in Vicdanistan, Australia or outside a public library in Caulfield North, Vicdanistan) thus making it more likely for someone in a rush to park there and thus attract a revenue-generating fine.
Meanwhile, Leftist councils (local government), that’s about most of them, all throughout Australia, are at war against the motorist and frequently and regularly remove large numbers of parking places as part of the “15 min city” and Agenda 2030 “compact cities” agenda whereby we’re all expected to walk or “take the bus”. Two examples that come to mind, St Kilda Rd, Melbourne, Vicdanistan and Carlisle St, Balaclava, Vicdanistan.
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I think the 15-minute city is a great idea (!!!please don’t stop reading here – read on!!!), and probably much like the major cities of old where each named suburb had its own centre, facilities and community. But to be a proper 15-minute city, it has to be designed and built that way so that people naturally use it that way without any need for any regulations laws or fines. Simply declaring that a city is a 15-minute city and fining people for being normal is criminally draconian. Too many of those in authority are using their authority to crush people instead of helping them.
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I read further and found it agreeable. Imagine everyone living in a pale though. Can I head out for a spot of fishing? Your papers please!
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You can go to the trouble of building ‘liveable’ cities … Or you can wield and big stick. Which do you think will be the preferred option?
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For whom? The people or those Elite psychopaths who “govern” us and carry the big stick? They enjoy wielding their power and hurting people. And Australian Governments are now full of them at every level. It’s what happens when conservatives and fellow rational thinkers remain silent.
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Part of the Australian problem is that politicians are, by and large, a-technical. My local MP is a lovely soul who talks about critical thinking but readily admits that her father ran a newsagency and that she has zero science training. Irrespective of political leanings we require technically-minded folk to make decisions on future technologies.
20
I would LUV to have everything I need within a 15 minutes drive !:-)
90
The 15 minute city concept is a re-birth of an old shibboleth of the town planning profession, being something that the in-crowd believe in but the rest of us know is bull$hit. It was once called the “neighbourhood” concept. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone lived, shopped, worked, were schooled, had elderly relatives, had entertainment, all in the same place. Like existed in the earlier part of the last century and has never existed since. Here in Townsville NQ the army families used to live in Vincent. No army bases in Vincent, but the army built the suburb. And don’t live there any more. Everybody now lives somewhere in the urban region and does stuff in the urban region. No pattern whatsoever. It is a distributed-centre city, like some species of dinosaur – more than one brain. Might work better if the road network was enforced circuit-linear, eg everyone turns left but can go 180° somewhere, but that is not popular even when the distance is a mere 100m.
The charge station at Willows Shoppingtown is (or was?) at the top of a long steep 2-storey ramp. Hilarious. Ergon’s electric car conked out at least twice near my place. I stuck a note on the windscreen that said “a bridge too far”. Ok the reference was a bit obscure, but it seems they got the point anyway.
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I had a friend who was the secretary for the Campbelltown planning authority or some such name. We were in the Reserves together. They built a whole suburb for single mothers. I was also involved with the school P and C and at one conference the principal of the public school in this single mother suburb told us her school P and C consisted of her and the manager of the tuck shop. The mothers had no one to teach them how to be school mums. A terrible situation and an example of bureaucratic ineptitude. When bureaucrats start making decisions be prepared for disasters as they always consider themselves to be smarter than everyone else. I sum them up differently; dumb and industrious, the most dangerous combination of human traits.
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Lawrie
Slightly off topic, but my wifes uncle was in the NSW Education system for decades achieving school principal level. He told me (unsure of timing but its probably the same now anyway) about Narrabundah High school in ACT, surrounded by housing commission areas. The school put on a play and the kids rehearsed for weeks. Only 6 parents turned up. All the rest went off to the club or elsewhere rather than support their kids. Crushing for the school staff, and sends all the wrong messages to the kids.
Seems that policy has moved away from this sort of concentration of housing commission people these days, but clearly somebody needs to give these parents a lesson in life as well.
50
I live within 10km of the centre of Sydney. When I moved there our little cluster of main street shops had one of most things – none terribly great, but they supplied the full range of goods an services. They have all been replaced. The 7 little hardware stores in surrounding suburbs have all gone – replaced by a mega Bunnings 6-8 km away. Doctors by the medical centre in the next suburb and so on. The last clothing store is closing, but we have more cafes than you can shake a stick at.
The 15 minute city is what we used to have. Their new idea of the 15 minute city is not the same thing. It is predicated on very high density and a complete lack of car ownership. It is not a case of convenience for residents being able to get most of what they want locally, but rather a collection of closed communities to “optimise resource allocation”. The total coincidence is, not surprisingly, the this would result in greater control over the populace.
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The reason the local stores closed, with the likes of Buunnings taking their trade, is that the larger stores, like supermarkets, are more efficient and thus cheaper.
As with everything allegedly green, ‘optimising resource allocation’ actually means more expensive, just like ‘green jobs’ in ‘green energy’ just means lower productivity. At best red/green is an ideology of morons, at worst its a demolition job, and the unsavoury middle is plain old totalitarianism.
They might become a tad believable when they start advocating the utilisation of and improvement of nuclear power. But they never will. Their agenda is the opposite of both freedom and prosperity. It is, rather, your enslavement and your penury.
30
Having worked with a team of researchers in ‘Liveable Cities’, I subsequently view town planners as control freaks who simply and totally refuse to include human needs and preferences in their designs. I got myself into multiple spats with the aforementioned scientists simply for reminding them that the who purpose of town planning and cities generally is to meet the needs of its human inhabitants. They tended to see towns and cities more like factory farms that had to accommodate people in the most efficient way possible, with little regard for their wellbeing.
Evidence for that wrong-headed thinking is everywhere, and I clearly recall attending a conference in Melbourne where a speaker from the UK put this forward, underpinned by various slides showing the folly of planners who try to assert THEIR designs and decisions on the worker bees. They ranged from deserted parks that were either in the wrong place or were unsafe for women, to traffic islands surrounded by unused pedestrian pathways – but with worn-out ‘DIY’ paths straight across them. We see this all the time once you become aware of it. People will make their own decisions, try to live their own way and to hell with autocratic planners.
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We all like livable cities! I live in a Northwest Sydney suburb, leafy and pretty and nice folks too. Bordering on a decently sized park/bush land. What’s not to like?
I have lived here for close to 15 years and what the developers together with the state government have done in this period is to systematically take us a away from anything that would resemble a 15-minute city.
Yes, there are local shops but the offering is limited and rather expensive (albeit of good quality). All the rest has been concentrated into mega installations: huge Bunnings, massive shopping malls (Macquarie shopping mall comes to mind), huge furniture shops concentrated near Auburn. And so on, we have all seen it happening.
The trip to the nearest mall could be around 10 minutes, in theory. The local traffic has been so mishandled by all layers of government that a one-way trip easily blows out to 35 minutes. How’s that for a 15 minute city? There is only one main road between where I am and the two nearest shopping malls; no alternative routes.
Hey, try to get a parking spot in Macquarie shopping center on either a hot or a rainy on Saturday after 10AM. That alone can take up to 20 minutes! And I have seen the EV charging bays coming up, not too many yet. Just think of the mayhem that will unfold if hundreds of customers need to get to those charging bays!
And are there any reasonable plans in the making to improve on all this? Not that I am aware of? Just build more high-rises.
Sydney suburbia is becoming more unlivable every day. I’d say it’s close to impossible to construct something that even resembles a 15 minute city in the next 15 to 20 years. And if you wanted to that, the cost would stellar.
60
please planners are NOT scientists – far from it as my grandson is a planner and I can assure you that whilst he understands road and traffic – he has no idea of either science or what people actually want! it is all primarily to suit the planning authority – council or whoever, but most definitely not the public at large. Take the development around Beveridge here in Vicdanistan – where they need to get out of each little pocket to get to the freeway and take an hour and a half just to exit the suburb! Of course the Station is only 10 minutes walk away – but perish the thought these new suburbanites would use public transport.
10
I agree.
I am almost in a 15 minute city, but of my own making.
An 18 minute cycle to work, come back past the beach for a swim in the afternoon and any grocery shopping (its got to fit into a 35l backpack but will cary milk in a special bag on the wrist. 15 min walk to the local shopping centre, small local mall at the end of the street 200m away.
Its taken a few years to get it all in place, especially getting work only 8km away, and Newcastle is an especially flat city really suited to cycling.
I like not having to spend much money on the car, given traffic I can get to work faster on the bike anyway.
But if this were imposed on me through the stick approach I would probably resist it pretty strongly. Just put in decent infrastructure and let people get on with it and they will do what suits them.
And it gives me some satisfaction to add to the stress level of the odd moron you get like the bloke yesterday who got very excited from the queue of oncoming vehicles and screamed out “I f-cking hate cyclists!” When I nodded and waved at him he followed up with “I hope you f-ckin’ die!”. Such anger about someone doing their own thing! Almost made me want to trade in my regular shorts and t shirt riding attire for some lycra to really egg him on!
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Allocating premium parking sites to EV charging is another form of subsidy.
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15 minute city?
Does that imply all power and food production facilities are within 15 minutes of all the residents?
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Last time I checked none are in Teal seats.
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You have to wonder who initiated the idea of these huge fines. The average public serpent or politician isn’t such a forward thinking or creative thinker. I suspect the idea must have come from industry lobby groups or their “experts”.
Jo quotes Their ABC:
Gosh, I’m sick of hearing that expression for anything to do with the anthropogenic global warming fraud or covid.
It’s classic argumentum ab auctoritate.
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But experts say….blah blah .
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I just get the impression Australians like politicians who appear tough and strong. Then they feel safe. So the competition is on amongst politicians to see who can be the “toughest” politician. And it wins votes, look at Dan Andrews. Its a manifestation of the nanny state.
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“An Expert is a person with training and, more importantly, credentials, in an subject considered necessary by rulers. They are the persons who provide rulers with the “science” the rulers use to justify their actions. The rulers are oligarchs and top bureaucrats, both of which include Experts promoted beyond their expertise. Hence expertocracy.” William M. Briggs.
40
How The Expertocracy Builds Consensus & You Become A Denier
30
Might be fun to stealthily stencil a Handicap symbol in the EV parking slot and see what happens. 🙂
Just kidding….. Of course. 🙂
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I bet these EV charging spots take precedence over handicapped parking spots. Because EV owners are more important than everyone, and virtue signalers have to be seen.
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Meanwhile, the fine for parking illegally in a disabled spot in NSW is a mere $587. Priorities are a bit skewed here.
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True. A major shopping centre in WA has EV bays at the door with free charging. The disabled must cross a roadway and go around concrete curbing.
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In a weird sort of way, by purchasing an EV, you are handicapped…you are now locked into the woefully inadequate charging infastructure that takes forever, and get to experience the numbers of chargers that are broken or don’t work. Fines for ICE drivers parking in EV charging spots was predictable, but what about the EV Owner who hooks up, and then goes walkabout for far longer than the charging time…how is that going to be policed ?
Personally, after seeing numbers of these things self immolate on YouTube, I give them a wide berth when I park.
My long term prediction is that are going to fail as a design, given the mess the energy grid has become.
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Or “Loading only”
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Lance there was a shop on fleabay(?) selling fake charging points that you could fix onto your old clunker , I’ll see if I can find it .
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A fake charging point on your car may not work in Australia because it says “EV” on your license/registration plate, so you would need a fake EV sticker as well. And Big Brother would be most displeased if you did that.
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Was the States admittedly.
30
The EV sticker is actually there because of the insistence of fire brigades. Electric car fires are a whole issue of their own. It can take 100,000 litres of water over a couple of days to put one out.
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when will the cost of fire insurance make owning a battery powered vehicle prohibitively expensive?
When will the first responders start requiring the owners’ insurance to cover the additional costs they find when dealing with the same.
30
Amazing.
When fuel-powered vehicles need to fill up they go to a petrol station located, by fuel suppliers, in convenient locations in cities and around the country. They are located on private property and off-public roadways so as not to inconvenience the public and road users. They need to be set-back from public roadways for obvious safety reasons.Patrons can drive in to fuel stations, stop, fill up, pay up and leave in minutes.
Vehicle manufacturers can freely sell their vehicles knowing that the infrastructure to refuel them are in place.
Vehicle owners can also carry cans of fuel, like my grandfather did, to fill up when their vehicles run out of fuel between petrol stations.
All done without inconveniencing the public.
Why should the public have to carry the burden and inconvenience of keeping electric vehicles on our roadways which are fully fully financed by fuel taxes?
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Comment of the day!
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With all their subsidies and avoidance of taxes paid by other road users, EV drivers are really freeloading off the backs of the drivers of conventional cars aren’t they?
. When they have to pay the full costs of using the roads and associated infrastructure EV drivers might be less keen on owning one of these electric dinosaurs.
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What if evil wags shifted random cars into the hallowed space for the Lulz?
In the future these spaces may be guarded by bollards which retract if you
have the proper social credit score. I was curious to see a tesla parked next
to my ICE (I sound like Batman’s Penguin!) the other day. Hoping that the tesla
would not self immolate, I said a quick pray.
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And in respect to Batman, even the original Batmobile had (fictionally) a jet turbine engine as can be adduced from the flames at the back and the Boy Wonder saying “turbines to speed”.
https://youtu.be/cdYn8v_ITH0
And in reality, the real car had a Chevrolet V8.
Fossil fuels rule!
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Roscoe down the road is through with Jets- He is building a Rocket car. Problem is he has to find a mudflat long enough to run it. 1000 mph is the goal! It was fun to listen to surplus F16 jets powering up on a quiet afternoon!
30
Free idea for aftermarket:
EV Charger current to 12V dc auto battery charge adapter. Keep your privileged parking space and your recip diesel/gas engine vehicle battery charged for pennies! Don’t need a charge-up? Just plug in to hang the cord while you’re shopping. $200 suggested retail. Looks just like OEM.
I expect to be able to find competing versions on Ali and Amazon within a week.
(Prediction: as with handicapped parking, there will be special EV charge licensing tags sold by authoritarian polities in the next escallation, followed closely by counterfeit tags. Both will present business opportunities)
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Thank heaven I’m safe then.
I can never bring myself to go any closer than ten metres to one of these charging spots.
The revulsion I feel at the engineering stupidity and pretentiousness of the ‘lectric car thing keeps me well out of the picture.
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There are many RAM trucks in my neck of the woods and they are a bit wider than the normal ute so why can’t they have wider parking spaces? Shopping centre car parks are designed to accommodate small cars but many tradie type families cannot afford a work truck and a town runaround. Where is the consideration? I am just waiting for the new phase of EVs to reach the point where new batteries are required and the screams for help from the privileged EV owner for the taxpayer to pay for disposal. Watch as woke governments cave in. Will the same governments have the guts to charge EV owners for the use of roads paid for out of fossil fuel taxes on motorists? 43 cents a litre at say an average of 12 km per litre for an ICE vehicle weighing the same would be 3.6 cents a kilometre. They would have to keep a log book and pay up at registration time. More screams from the woke and fashionable.
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I nearly parked in an EV charging spot once. It looked like an ordinary parking spot, and was marked with exactly the same lines as the ordinary parking spots on either side of it. It was only when I got out of the car that I saw the EV charger. Naturally, I moved to another spot, but I did think it was poor planning not to make the EV charger obvious in the first place.
I never ever make that mistake with disabled parking spaces, because those spaces are very clearly marked with wheelchair signs and a blue wheelchair stencil on the tarmac. If they want to fine people way more for parking in EV spaces than for parking in disabled spaces then EV spaces need to be at least as well identified as disabled spaces.
“Fairly enough, the highest parking fine you can cop in NSW ($686) is for falsely displaying a disabled parking sticker. Next comes stopping or parking in a disabled spot ($572).” – from Choice 11 May 2021
I cannot see how, in a sane legal system, it would not be a valid defence against a draconian fine that “the EV space was not as clearly marked as a disabled space”.
But then, I cannot see how, in a sane legal system, blocking an EV owner is so much more of a crime than blocking a disabled person.
Time for a popular revolt. Seriously. But it can still be done via the ballot box if only there was a major political party with the guts to stand up for ordinary people. The Dutch have just done it: Rural populist party emerges as big winner in Dutch elections. What I loved was the victory speech by the leader of the party that had just gone from zero to major party in one hit: “What the **** happened?”.
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I did think it was poor planning not to make the EV charger obvious in the first place.
Benign of you. I suspect it was not poor plannning at all.
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Ha! Great minds think alike. We posted at almost the exactly the same time. I didn’t see your response when I posted.
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Not necessarily poor planning. Perhaps “part of the plan”.
It will help some public serpent get a promotion when they show they have managed to increase fine revenue.
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Did you accidentally hit and break the charger?
If not, why not? 🙂
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I think a little dog-bone of stainless steel sheet drilled at each end so it fits over two terminals of the charger plug would do, slip it on as you walk past & when someone plugs their car in the dog-bone shorts the charger out.
Easy enough to stamp out thousands of them before the authorities have to put an attendant there to supervise, which is what regular petrol stations do.
If a few people get electrocuted from the current machinery as it gets old there might be a change in heart too, although having cars burst into flames when hooked up will do.
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Providing public land for free for charging stations is just another subsidy toward the anthropogenic global warming fraud. Meanwhile regular motorists are forced to suffer.
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The photo at the top, shows the sign in Rocky. This charging station is not new. It is in the City Council car park off Alma Street and has been there for several years. There are 3 charging bays. I go past there occasionally, and ONCE I saw an EV being recharged there. People aren’t stupid or vindictive- no one to my knowledge has ever been fined for parking there illegally. I think there is a Tesla charger somewhere in the Stockland shopping centre.
There is no need for huge fines, certainly not in regional areas where there are so few EVs. The sign has not changed. No need to mention a fine- there’s no fine mentioned in other no parking zones either.
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There is a dedicated bay with 2 chargers in Bowen QLD and situated in a pleasant and convenient spot. Never seen a vehicle parked there though.
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“80,000-odd EVs in the country…”
Yes I’ll admit they are ‘odd’ vehicles/toys, but as to whether many are in ‘the country’ as opposed to ‘the city’ I think it’s all UHI – Urban Heat Island effect – fried brains.
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Don’t worry about the fines, you need electricity to charge the cars, and soon there won’t be enough of that.
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Don’t worry about the fines, soon there may not be enough electricity to keep anything running.
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Green cars only 🙂
https://www.theenvironmentalblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/image001-3.jpg
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Interesting thought, what’s to stop someone from parking an EV in the charging bay. Plugging it in…and leaving it there all day.
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Rather, parking the EV there and not plugging it in. How’s that for virtue signaling??
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Easy, just put a time limit on it like most other city parking spaces.
Say, 2 hours 😉
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A bank of 30 ultra-capacitors would reach full charge inside 3 minutes and have a good 500,000 duty cycles.
If cars had the new Super-Batteries from Skeleton Tech they could recharge fully in 5 minutes but they have limited range so would still require a more conventional chemical battery for storage of electrons for distance travel. Logically, future city commuter cars will need to be aluminium composites to make them light weight and would carry a mix of ultra capacitors for short sharp burst charging and regenerative braking, coupled with Super Batteries and backed by NiHM or Li-ion. Cars with inbuilt photo-voltaic rooves might be added to the mix.
Essentially, battery cars are daft idea but I see a future where EVs all carry a small diesel generator. Back in the early 1980s my father talked about the cars of 2030 having a flat 600cc twin cylinder diesel under the boot (or rear of vehicle) running at optimum revs to charge a battery-bank under the mid-car which would drive a DC electric motor at each wheel. All controls would be through a central computer and every road sign would transmit information to the computer to limit speed. He said that current 1980s battery technology was the stumbling block. I’d say that by 2030 we might have solved that electron storage issue.
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I don’t know about all day, but several ‘real world’ long-term tests of EV cars included many frustrations including other EV owners who plug in and bugger off.
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I would like to see what happens if a stranded EV owner calls something like the NRMA, RAA, etc, and needs their car charged.
If someone turned up in a car powered by an internal combustion engine, and said they had the option of having their car partially charged:
– via solar panels
or
– via a fossil fuel powered generator
or
via a battery pack with its charge maintained via fossil fuels (downtime is bad for business…)
What would the EV owner do…?
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What would the EV owner do? Scream ‘racism!’ of course… or any other ‘ism’ their city-fried brain comes up with after decades of programming.
A person died in a car fire yesterday, closing roads in Auckland, but as yet cannot find (dis)info as to EV or not EV…
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Googled for that news. Got four hits, all links now report Error 404 – Page Not Found. It looks like car fires – or, at least this care fire – never happened. (Actually I use DuckDuckGo, not Google0.
https://www.newshub.co.nz › home › new-zealand › 2023 › 03 › person-dies-after-car-catches-fire-in-central-auckland.html
Person dies after car catches fire in central Auckland | Newshub
A person has died after a car caught fire in central Auckland on Saturday morning. Emergency services rushed to the blaze on Quay St just after 11:30am. Police said one person was in the…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz › nz › car-erupts-into-flames-in-central-auckland-major-police-presence-as-fenz-extinguish-fire › MDIZAT563ZCHRERJ5MEXF6MYQY
One person dead after car fire in Quay St, central Auckland
1 day agoA car has burst into flames on a central Auckland street. Fire fighters and police are at the scene on Quay Street near Britomart. DO YOU KNOW MORE – CONTACT SENIOR JOURNALIST ANNA LEASK…
https://www.stuff.co.nz › auckland › 300833547 › one-dead-in-horrible-car-fire-in-downtown-auckland
One dead in ‘horrible’ car fire in downtown Auckland
1 day agoOne person has died after a “horrible” car fire on Quay St in downtown Auckland on Saturday morning. According to a police spokesperson, the fire was reported about 11.40am. Firefighters…
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz › news › national › one-person-dead-after-car-fire-in-quay-st-central-auckland
One dead as car erupts into flames in central Auckland- major police …
TodayA car has burst into flames on Quay Street in central Auckland. Photo / Andrew Stone A police spokesperson confirmed officers were responding to the incident – reported at 11.40am. “Police have…
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George, same, I’m a Duck-man & all I got was Error/404 memory hole – nothing to see here: some random ‘car on fire’ pics but no info.
Maybe she’s back… in disguise: Ms Ardern to police interwebs ‘freedom of speech’ as Ms Information?
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Hi Greg.
My first thought was “I wonder if it was an EV battery fire but one of the photos showed the fire was out.
Therefore not an EV fire.
40
I believe roadside service organisations such as NRMA, RACV now have mobile charging vehicles with battery packs to give you about ten minutes of charge to drive to the nearest charging station, if there is one.
Of course, it would be unreasonable and uneconomic to expect the mechanic to sit there doing nothing for several hours to give you a full charge.
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EVs are unreasonable and uneconomic… no reason why the owners of such would not demand that people sit and do nothing…!
20
For inner-city types without garages a Vicdanistani inventor has made a charging point designed to install at the kerbside with cables run under the footpath (sidewalk) to your house. It is very expensive to install, about A$6,000 plus ongoing council fees and there is no guarantee to prevent another motorist parking in “your” spot. Of course, then council’s response may be to put up one of these signs so they can increase fine revenue.
https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/about-the-council/news-and-media/port-phillip-charging-ahead-with-first-kerbside-ev-charging-trial
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Here’s an idea for a bright spark! make a cover for your petrol cap that looks like an EV plug. The “pseudo” plug will make it difficult for the Parking Dollies to discern an EV from an ICE or indeed a Hybrid.
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See my comment at 3.4.1. Probably not possible in Australia.
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On the Nullarbor Plain in Australia’s outback there is a diesel powered EV charging station (see link).
Now, the Left/anti-energy-lobby and the “fact checkers” (sic) went wild over criticism of this even though it’s true. At some point it was also running on bio-diesel which is also highly questionnable from an energy yield point of view.
But the fact remains that in cities, EVs are mostly powered by coal and in the outback by diesel.
It is not feasible in a typical domestic solar installation to have significant charging of your EV at home because you would need a monstrous installation plus batteries (because typically you’ll have the car at work during daylight hours).
https://twitter.com/KeithRParsons/status/1356308137133834242?t=3fYzIT3vdVYoXByBcrUmPQ&s=19
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Remember the Left, anti-energy-lobby the Elites and their army of useful idiots are not fundamentally committed to allowing non-Elites to have personal mobility such with the personal motor vehicle.
Even allowing the pretence of “EVs for all” is just an illusion until they secure even power. Then EVs will be seen to be only for the Elites, much as they are now, actually.
Then they will fully implement the “15 minute city” and like Medieval serfs, you will be expected to live your entire life, cradle to grave, living as a slave and never leaving your city.
At the most fundamental level, this is a war against freedom and all post-Enlightenment achievements.
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It goes nicely together with an idea of rescuing banks only if at least 50% uninsured deposits are by billionaires.
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Who pays for the electricity being used at these Public Charging spots? The actual EV owner? Hmmmmmmmm. If so, how? The Ratepayer? Hmmmmmmm. More than likely. The State/Territory? Hmmmmmmm. That means the Taxpayer. Again, more than likely.
Where is the Equity in all of this?
And ‘Net Zero’ is a ridiculous phrase. It is either Zero or it isn’t. Just like ‘Negative Growth’ is ridiculous. It is either Growth or it’s a ‘Decline/Reduction/Pull-back’ for the opposite. Do we say ‘It’s a Positive Decline/Reduction/Pull-back’? Not really unless you are living in Left Wing Nut Job Land.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
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Their beloved equality goes out the window because it doesn’t suit them, yet again.
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The big problem with owning an EV is lack of charging infrastructure so I can only imagine more and more of these parking spots will disappear as infrastructure increases.
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The worst offenders are actually the EV drivers themselves. I have seen the same white Tesla parked at a suburban shopping centre charging point all day, repeatedly. The car is probably owned by a shopowner or maybe in centre management itself.
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Charging spots will charge very high fees,
For the wrong cars, those dread I.C.E.s,
And if you cross the white lines,
Pay astronomical fines,
To help those who bolster E.V.s.
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City cars shouldn’t need charging during the day anyway. You should be charging them at home. City kms is so low for city dwellers, the km travelled is well within the limits of the cars there is no need to be running out of charge during business hours.
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Perhaps it depends on whether the owners have to pay to charge the EVs at the council provided charging stations
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Apparently the 12v batteries that run everything except the motor commonly go flat and cause problems like being locked in the car and not being able to remove the main charge plug. The 12v doesn’t recharge as the driving battery is being charged.
Be a good business running around jump starting the 12v batteries.
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My Mazda 3 identifies as an EV, so not only am i able to park in EV charging spots with no time limit, I am considered a stunning and brave hero for doing so.
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Aloha! Trend in US is homeless and those of low income and working poor cutting the EV charge cable to get money from recycled copper. Since soros no bail applies its easy money! What’s the fine for stealing EV charge cables in Oz?
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Sounds like South Africa where power cables stolen everywhere.
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Commentators seem to assume that should the push to remove petrol powered cars from the reach of most Australians will succeed both politically, and without violence, both overt and covert. I expect that as the strangulation of the electricity generation system becomes more pervasive, and expensive, resistance will be widespread, and (unless reversed) may end up as class war. The monied class will swan about in their Teslas, while the hordes of unemployed, use a shopping jeep, bicycle, or just walk. Australia is hugely less egalitarian than it was in the ’60s, and the social glue can become unstuck if conspicuous consumption sparks hatred.
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Interesting paper…..”Renewables cannot be made reliable with storage so their penetration must be constrained and managed”
http://www.cfact.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/WOJICKREPORT.pdf
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What we need to do is push skip-bins (loaded with sand or bricks) into these parking spaces to ‘send a message’.
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Sand, I think. Your defence would be you were providing fire extinguishing material.
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I can see a great market here for dummy charging interfaces. Simple solution – develop a ‘dummy’ charging interface that accepts an electric recharger so it looks like its charging but does nothing. Given the IQ levels of the brain dead inspectors this would look bona-fide. It would fit into the traditional petrol refuelling point but would be isolated from providing any electrons, i.e. a dummy refuelling just like Bowen.
Please send orders to Chris Bown c/- stooges house, Canberra. Discounts offered for four or more.
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This is a repeat by me, but just in case nobody has already mentioned this in this thread…
ALL EV charging points should be powered by 100% “renewables” (haha). i.e. NO backup by reliable, traditional power.
I expect a long, long, long (recurring) line of “empty” vehicles waiting for a “charge” if sane rules are ever implemented.
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You won’t find the leaders of ANY religion living up to the standards they preach.
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I wonder why there are insufficient electric car chargers? If were a good business model and folks could make money by getting a loan, building a forecourt, installing the cables and charging stations then – charge a decent amount of money to make a profit to cover those costs. We would have lots of them. Just like petrol station!
Its a funny old world unfortunately.
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Traffic signs would not show the fine as it is a variable that will likely change – increase of course – over time. In the UK council run off-street parking must have a conditions of use sign which I think does include the fine. Rather than the parking spaces being used by normal car drivers, the biggest problem will be battery cars drivers leaving them there longer than they need to charge – which admittedly can be a looong time anyway. When I put some on street in Westminster I asked how they knew if the vehicle was charging – they didn’t. So the idea of the fake charge lead would have been fine there.
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A meter showing the current would be easy enough to install as part of the charging apparatus.
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as would a payment facility.
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So far, sane people have just been laughing at the EV-loons, and letting them go about making fools of themselves. But get the sane people *pissed_off* with the EV bullshit, and things will be quite different. Expensive, delicate, unattended things…
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What we need now is a false charging socket that can easily be installed on regular cars.
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The US EIA seems to think (somehow having the temerity to part with the thoughts of the dear leader) that US EV penetration in passenger cars will max out at about 30%
BY 2050. This is sort of a best case, however, so as not to get the folks who write the report fired.
The US geography, like the Aus, puts a vast pat of the market out of reach unless the range and charge time and load capacity compete effectively with the same in IC
vehicles. It also assumes the private market will somehow supply the crushing demand for batteries. The gov, it seems to me, will likely FUBAR battery production in the west,
permitting mines and refining facilities alone being a decades long proposition, and “never” in many areas. Then there is the competition; Items like the Tesla wall
for the home will become a needed part of the cost of living in areas with unreliable power; and in a market many of these individuals will pay a premium for their own security and comfort; small business paying a premium for their continued existence. The Dov will want to route batteries to other markets, like futile grid backup farms. A couple of super duper fires and long severe weather events; plus an evacuation massive failure due to electrics, and the front page stories (if it bleeds, it leads) will make flogging green
electrons less popular. Also, in the US, folks who have diesel home generators are also likely to have guns, you’ll have better luck getting them to share than turning them in.
If the physics tell you the system will fail under stress, the system will fail under stress.
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The US EIA seems to think (somehow having the temerity to part with the thoughts of the dear leader) that US EV penetration in passenger cars will max out at about 30%
BY 2050. This is sort of a best case, however, so as not to get the folks who write the report fired.
The US geography, like the Aus, puts a vast pat of the market out of reach unless the range and charge time and load capacity compete effectively with the same in IC
vehicles. It also assumes the private market will somehow supply the crushing demand for batteries. The gov, it seems to me, will likely FUBAR battery production in the west,
permitting mines and refining facilities alone being a decades long proposition, and “never” in many areas. Then there is the competition; Items like the Tesla wall
for the home will become a needed part of the cost of living in areas with unreliable power; and in a market many of these individuals will pay a premium for their own security and comfort; small business paying a premium for their continued existence. The Dov will want to route batteries to other markets, like futile grid backup farms. A couple of super duper fires and long severe weather events; plus an evacuation massive failure due to electrics, and the front page stories (if it bleeds, it leads) will make flogging green
electrons less popular. Also, in the US, folks who have diesel home generators are also likely to have guns, you’ll have better luck getting them to share than turning them in.
If the physics tell you the system will fail under stress, the system will fail under stress.
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One has to love a technology so flawed,that there is no point sabotaging it..
“just park it,it disposes of itself”.
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Do they at least pay to charge their cars there, or is it for free?
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My UK brother-in-law gets to recharge his EPA work car at work for free. Who’s paying for that ?
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Gawwamunt job? Who do you think pay for it? 🙂
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Speaking of “Electric Vehicles”; toss in some basic Chemistry and; viola:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQZK0z7xYuQ&t=170s
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Even where it is possible, I have yet to see someone leave their car in front of the pump and go off to have a coffee. No way to win a popularity contest.
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We saw 3 motorbikes parked in front of charging points at a motorway service station in England or Scotland (?) once! No sign of any EVs using them.
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Fine me $3200 for parking in the wrong spot, and you’ll see a rash of EV vandalism throughout your city.
Promise.
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https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/20/scratched-ev-battery-your-insurer-may-have-to-junk-the-whole-car/
Seems that if your EV has suspected damage to the battery after an accident your insurance company is likely to write it off.
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