Energy Matters Forums

[zzsstt]

The REVA and various small, light, super-efficient petrol cars faced an extra impediment here that we don't have a category for registration like the Japanese 'kei' cars or the US 'neigbourhood vehicle' or whatever they are called in the UK.

The UK has adopted a scheme of registration (road tax) based on CO2 emissions. As a result an electric vehicle (classed as zero emissions) is free to "rego". Such a system has great advantages, but also the disadvantage that it can penalise those with less choice. Somebody requiring a larger vehicle (a large family) will inevitably pay more to "tax" their vehicle. At least they don't have dirt roads, vast distances and roo's jumping in front of them!

However this, and the changes relating to alternative powered vehicles and small vehicles like the REVA, has only been done in the last few years. So it's not really true that Australia has an extra impediment, it's simply that whilst other countries have changed their legislation to suit their needs, Australia has plowed on regardless. We seem (as I've said before) to be very keen to make a lot of noise about being green, but utterly disinclined to actually do anything. Or perhaps just to do anything that affects people in cities, because stopping farmers farming, creating national parks, removing land and water rights etc., none of which impact city dwellers, are done in a flash with no hesitation (or thought!).

[disenchant@solar]

Both huge cities but would say centre of London is a lot more packed, the roads, like a lot of cities, towns in Europe are centuries old and you can hardly park.
Though i've never seen so many cars trying to move through a city, as the tunnels in Sydney.
In London several years ago so don't know about lately but was in Sydney in May to July and travelling suburbs was easy, though went through the city tunnels and reminded me of the traffic jams on the motorways in the uk decades ago, but worse underground, god knows what would happen if there was a big fire and lanes were blocked.

Would be a good idea to have those in line ev's, you mentioned, like the Tango if George Clooney can drive one must be stylish ,maybe it was more the 0-60 in 4secs and he was given it.
The aesthetics of the vehicle like anything must relate to the aerodynamics of it, a bird does'nt look like a flying brick.

Not an unsimilar problem myself with vehicles drive a LPG, 12 year old town ace for home and drive a new Hiace LWB, thats not mine, for work. The town ace will do 250km on $20 LPG with 100kg in back and the thirsty Hiace i fill twice a week running around city, stop,start with same in back costs $120 a week, do 500-600km week.
The Hiace i would convert to another LPG town ace and get rid of the box on wheels, if i had any choice.

[zzsstt]

I think that both cities have a parking and traffic issues in their CBD's, and both are made worse (from the car drivers viewpoint) by bus lanes etc. Sydney suburbs are perhaps slightly less congested in the residential areas, but that may simply be because people still feel that the trunk roads through those areas are marginally quicker than rat runs through the houses, and that will change as it slows down. Sydney also possibly has a geographical factor that keeps people on the trunk roads, in that certainly on the coast side there are few possibilities to cut through residential areas because many are isolated by water. In London you can normally find a fairly straight short cut through a couple of suburbs via residential back roads, but in Sydney the harbour and bays tend to force you to the bigger roads. However the older areas of Sydney are very similar to London, but often with even narrower streets! Rush hour in both cities brings everything to a standstill.

London, by the way, is not really centuries old. Large areas were flattened in the war, so whilst it does have some very old buildings, and a few very old streets, a large proportion of it is post 1940's. The same applies to many European cities. They are all congested, as are the cities in the US.

The problem is simply too many cars. Or, more accurately, too much road area occupied by a single person (Falcodore = 7m of road for a single occupant!).

[disenchant@solar]

Driving around Sydney you see an almost neverending stream of vehicles, almost always with a single occupant. That is a cultural problem, not a technological one.

The problem is simply too many cars. Or, more accurately, too much road area occupied by a single person (Falcodore = 7m of road for a single occupant!).

With you, how do they make a single seater vehicle thats also practical and Kool,i think they call it a bike.(not trying to be smart).
How do we make it more popular, like in Asia, make them safer, have a kind of cab or better panniers,
Incentives for trikes even though they look ridiculous, if you made them look Kool.
Even saw a bike/suit you climb into and its transforms at speed, whilst that maybe scifi at the moment
changing the way we look at the concept, new concept vehicles coming out all the time with no much take.

it's simply that whilst other countries have changed their legislation to suit their needs, Australia has plowed on regardless. We seem (as I've said before) to be very keen to make a lot of noise about being green, but utterly disinclined to actually do anything. Or perhaps just to do anything that affects people in cities, because stopping farmers farming, creating national parks, removing land and water rights etc., none of which impact city dwellers, are done in a flash with no hesitation (or thought!).

Sorry if digressing.
We seem to have ploughed ahead with solar, perhaps not quite in the best way,
but things will change in the solar industry when parity comes, but that's another topic.
There's no incentive for ev at all, it's a joke, even though charging stations are being installed.

I go to rural properties to work sometimes and you farmers have it difficult and i know we all have a lot of respect for you for that.
'Out of adversity' as they say, thats why farmers are known to be so inventive, thinking around problems all the time.
Built a battery zapper a few years ago and in the write up it said that they reckon a farmer had a sulphated battery and tried shocking the sulphation from the plates with an modded electric fence supply and ended working.

[Photon]

I have just returned from a 2 month tour of Europe and it was only in and around Paris that I noticed the traffic to be anything like Melbourne. The inner suburbs of London are far less congested than Melboune - the CBD is virtually car free and pedestrians/double decker buses are dominant. They have a congestion charge for entering the CBD....

I also noticed an absence of large cars, except perhaps for the remarkably familar looking Opel Omega (which is available in a variety of motors including 2.5TD) - a dead ringer for our home grown big aussie family sedan.

[zzsstt]

Your "home grown" Aussie sedan is a member of the same GM stable as the Omega. In the UK the main GM company used to be Vauxhall and their version was the Carlton. Opel used to be the mainland Eurpoe GM company, and they had the Omega. Even Cadillac in the US had a version. Badge engineering at it's finest!

[Photon]

I love how patriotic aussies can be identified by their love for a bottom end european car with an outdated american engine.