Watching Wham Baam Teslacam and there are some great videos there. Also a lot of satisfied Tesla owners. And that made me wonder why we're not happy little Teslamites here in Australia. Because we're usually early adopters.
At one stage the number of mobile phones per capita was the highest in the world, as we rushed to get connected across our spread-out population centres. When it makes sense to us, we get into it and don't usually hesitate so much.
I mean, who wouldn't want to drive a Plaid S now one of THE fastest and gruntiest mass production cars in the world? And if you sacrifice a little grunt for a lot of range, still who wouldn't?
Apparently, us. We're avoiding EVs in droves. And I'm at loss to understand why. The price is still better than a comparable size luxury ICEV (Internal Conbustion.....etc) when you factor in future savings, after all.
(Even with some Aussie states wanting to slug people for driving EVs instead of incentivating them...)
And the only things I can think of are range anxiety and uncertainty of charging infrastructure. And these are not the problem people think they are.
Range: My car gets about 450km on a tank of fuel and that costs us just over $100 to fill at Feb/Mar 2022 prices. That is expensive to run, and not a great range anyway. But it does us for driving around town for shopping, the odd trip to one of the nearby seaside towns or farm shops, and lasts us a month.
When I was working 9 - 5 and commuting, that would still have lasted us a fortnight with side trips.
A decent Tesla gets about 300km on a charge and that would come close to a fortnight's running at that rate. So a charge a week would do us and leave emergency range. Now - a charge can be accomplished in several ways.
There are more and more public chargers being put in around every state of Australia every year. For city commuting and shopping you can not only find public chargers but many shopping centre car parks are installing them, also car sales places, hotels, public carparks. There are maps that let you find chargers near you
I'm in an area considered somewhat remote and there are three chargers within ten kilometres of our place. They range from an hour to top an EV up, to about twenty minutes. Some are free, some need your credit card details. The thing is that there are also only four service stations in the same area. Yet I've never experienced range anxiety when I go to fill good ole Buttercup's tanks.
Running Costs: My wallet on the other hand is getting really anxious at the high monetary costs, the mounting environmental costs, and the mounting maintenance issues piling up. EVs on the other hand don't have as many moving parts to start collecting damage points.
An EV with similar range to Buttercup would cost $35 to Buttercup's $100. That's at a worst case charging facility. But you can also charge your EV at home. It's slow, but costs half as much. You can have and EV power supply installed at your home on your existing meter.
I'm working on an EV with a battery of around 65kWh and 55c at a commercial charge point and 30c home charging. Home can get even cheaper if you only charge on controlled load or night tariffs, down to 19c with my supplier.
So a commercial fast charge would set me back $35.75, a basic home charge $19.50, and off peak, just $13.00.
Availability/price: You aren't tied to the Tesla pricing structure, either - China's got a load of cars coming to Australia this year and for the future and they plan to compete on price.
Summary: Given the lower priced EVs coming, the wayyyyyyy lower running costs, way lower maintenance costs, and the proliferation of charge points being installed, this is the best time to drop the hammer on an EV.
And if you want to buy an old fart one, contact me... 8-)
Cheers!
