EV's as political agendas

In this post I'll argue that EV's as they are now, suite a narrow role and are best suited to the city dwelling elite or empowered who are upper middle class and can afford to spend amounts that the vast majority of the population can't. These folks can't grasp the ordinary lives, geographic and financial situations of what amounts to the majority of the populaion, and thus (out of sight out of mind) can't conceptualise the problems (because they don't have those problems). The political class is foremost in this.

So, a friend recently recirculated a post from a local politician (who are notorious for at least shallow and poorly thought out proposals and pork barreling around election times). Lets start with that shall we:

MP Twatt (not his real name) mentions:

Here in Queensland, we have the longest Electric Vehicle Super Highway in the world. Its free and its 100% renewable energy. 

Wow 100% renewable energy ... even if you charge at night ... and free charging. I'm sure that will stop as soon as there are any significant number. To the unthinking this map seems great and does appear to service the routes to majority of the major population centers for Queensland.

However the major population of Queensland resides in that south east corner, lets visualise this

So Brisbane, Gold Coast Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba represent nearly 70% of the population all in a small area at the South East Corner.

Then lets not stop our thinking at the border (an artifical boundary anyway) just south of the border is quite a lot of other important towns, and places where the population of Brisbane, Gold Coast and Toowoomba at least are far more likely to want to drive for a weekend. So lets take a look at that.

So when we just look at a map of the land with roads and towns terrains and coastlines (but no political boundaries) we see things differently to a politician.

For people not from this region (or even Australia) I've chosen a map type from Google which shows the magnitude of the cities (not least by urban sprawl visible, but) by the roads present within them. However Brisbane is the capital city, the Gold Coast a major dormitory city for Brisbane, not labelled is Ipswich which is a small jut out to the western side of Brisbane, and then Toowoomba a major regional center for distribution and part of the transport network north and south on the western side of the Great Dividing Range (can't forget mountain ranges right?).

So getting back to MP Pratts assertion, as much as this is a wonderful technical achievement and great for the companies involved I don't see that this is much more than a political scheme which spends money but for the benefit of who?

The key question of "where is the power coming from" is un-answered (I'll get to that soon), let alone "how long could it remain free power" if uptake increased?

Taking myself as an example of rural users, just this Friday I drove down to Brisbane from here (quite near to Warwick), the trip is 160Km (which will give you some scale on that map). I spent no longer than 2 hours at the longest location and without a massive amount of amps I'd have been unable to make a significant recharge on my EV (should I have had one) and by the time I'd returned home there was 344 Km from the trip and small detours in Brisbane. I don't think there is an EV on the market which could have done that trip. Perhaps the Kona with the biggest battery pack option would just "shave me in" but I suspect that I'd be stranded with a "dead battery" coming back up the range. Some data:

According to Hyundai officials, the base version with a 39.2 kWh battery pack delivers an all electric range of 186 miles (299 km). The version with a 64 kWh battery pack delivers an EPA rated range of 258 miles (415 km).

Then there is the fact that (when I got it home) the battery takes 64KWh which I'd estimate to be 70KWh at least drawn from my wall. This is about half my quarterly electricity bill , assuming I did this monthly my own power consumption would more than double. This I grant you is probably a little less than the cost of petrol but a substantial drain on the grid, which evidence suggests it can't cope with.

So I'd really have to have two cars (not an uncommon view for even city dwellingEV owers) one for "daily errands or commuting and one for trips ... so twice the taxes and insurances. Looks appealing doesn't it (for Government).

Looking again at the map of the region this would mean that folks in Brisbane would not be able to reach Stanthrope (major winery tourist area) Lismore (major regional center) or Byron Bay (major tourist area) with an EV unless they picked the more expensive one with the bigger battery

So, where is the electricty coming from? (oh the wall silly)

But with generation of power in Australia not being increased fast enough to meet general community and industry demand any significant increase in EV fleet will put a strain on generation as well as distribution ... which will cost money (and who will pay? Mostly people who don't have EV's).

Lets remember where that power comes from in Australia (and in reality most of the non nuclear world):

Generation capacity and output by fuel source

(source)

Note the importance of Capacity and Output ... before you start saying "ouh, Duh ... Solar is the answer" and try to do some reading and investigations on the actual reality of "Solar on Rooftop".

Out of Context

EV's are not a panacea (maybe in the future) but right now small EV's (like a Leaf or a Kona) are to my mind perfectly suited to High Density living in cities of greater than 500,000 population , where point of use pollution is far less controllable than than the power stations. I believe however that the places where EV's are most needed (Delhi comes to mind) would totally destroy their grid if (say) 20% of taxis went EV.

Its important to remember that the density of housing we have and the massive increase in how much power we use was not part of the projections of power planners 20 years ago. How here remembers the (Australian) media circus about attempting to upgrade our grid just 10 or so years ago and having the political opposition parties scream about the cost and accuse the encumbent government of "gold plating" the grid.

However even for residents of those high density, the majority of people don't  live in houses with dual car garages and thus don't have access to EV Super Charger charging ports. Most don't buy new cars ever thus rely on the hand me downs of the "privileged few" who seem to push these ideas as their own fantasy ideal solution to existing environmental problems.

In Short

EV's are not well suited for a rural or regional context or intra-city transport, while they are ideal for urban and city use, its only for those who can afford to feed and house them. Which gosh that's were most people live but not all of us are in that situation.

EV's are nothing new (interesting vignette) but for the same reasons of practicality will be unlikely to make the major inroads (a part of current Election Pork Barreling by at least Labor) without huge ancillary development and spending.

EV's to fulfill their design brief will need to undergo much evolution before they become anything more than magazine poster girls.

So, lets go back to reality and allow proper evolution of solutions rather than short attention span pushing the agenda for other people (oh, say Elon Musk).