Why Not EVs?
Reflections upon driving and listening to the radio.
My knuckles were white. I was so angry - no, I was FURIOUS! Who were these people? Why did they think the things they did? What could I do to change attitudes such as these? Why isn't the government and the automotive industry doing this?
"People who use the excuse of needing to tow a trailer and get firewood for justifying their 4WD need to get a life, they feel all secure up there but I can't see much from my small sedan because of them..."
"My husband and I each have a 4WD - it seems like a waste but he needs his for work and I go out in mine occasionally too, and I take the kids to school..."
"Many 4WDers want to be able to go up into the hills for holidays and tow a caravan or camper trailer... "
AAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!
I almost ran off the road in our old RAV4 because at some points I was actually shouting at the radio and if you know I also write at Grumpy Old Guy you'll understand that I am a GOG. The whole segment was so unbelievably - clueless, definitely clueless - that I despaired at our national broadcaster's lack of nous.
I doubt the presenter / announcer has ever owned a car from their cluelessness, but they had an opinion and it proved that old adage about opinions and buttholes. They all stink.
People dragged out the - by now old - chestnut that our utter butthole of a Prime Minister fostered with his "EVs are going to steal your weekends and won't tow your boat!" bullshit. One man determined to maintain his grift from the fossil fuel industry in that sentence did more to fuck over the EV industry in Australia than a 2,000-car pile-up of EVs outside a kindergarten and all catching fire could have done, and it's my sincere hope that at the 2022 election he gets his butt handed to him in a nonbiodegradable plastic bag and that we never see such a turkey bustard in our government ever again. Him and all his crew.
Okay - that's my political leanings, I'm pretty sure you folks reading this are sensitive enough to see through my softly softly approach, I'm often getting told "don't pussyfoot around Ted, tell us what ya really think!" from my friends, I think I just have trouble expressing myself properly sometimes, I really do . . .
The folks on the radio were - . . . they were . . . they . . . I . . . I just can't even. Opinions ranged from the perfectly reasonable "Tradespeople need to carry tools and materials and there aren't too many suitable EVs on the market right now" to *froth*froth*froth!* "that is such BULLSHIT most tradies just get them because they get a tax break!" *froth!*froth!*froth!*some!*more!*
The person that wanted a 4WD to go on adventure holidays but then admitted that they never had the time for an adventure holiday and would rather go on a cruise than an adventure holiday was also pretty much par for the confused course.
Everyone wants to just get better fuel economy. . .
That was another one. I begrudge the RAV4's thirsty 2L petrol engine, but other callers on that show defended their "very economical 2 and 3 litre engines" and I think from memory that was one of the moments I just wanted to stop on the very narrow country track I was on and SCREAM but hey.
We owned a Hyundai Accent before the RAV and it had a 1.5L and was very good on fuel because it was a light little thing, the RAV drinks almost twice as much but we had to change due to advancing age making it harder to get into and out of the Accent, and when it turned out the car we'd been driving for four years had been sold to us had major chassis issues that the inspection somehow missed.
If we'd been able to afford an EV we'd both have been into it like a shot. But attitudes like those expressed by our PM and people like those on that radio show have ensured that all the companies that make EVs just crossed Australia off their delivery list...
But no-one wants to pay for it. . .
If I could afford an EV, I sooo would already be driving one. Not necessarily a Tesla but there are literally dozens of other companies getting into EVs and some are beginning to deliver into Australia this year (2022) and are reasonably priced.
The Scott Morrison utter bullshit about "won't tow your boat" is easy to take care of - here are a few videos of people towing caravans with their EVs. That means trailers are going to be easy, boats are going to be easy. I don't know about you but I consider myself a fairly average Aussie and I've been on one caravan trip in my life, that was about 100km up the coast for a fishing competition.
Well within range of current EVs and the next models are already getting improved battery packs, the models by next year will almost double that range, and the excuses are starting to wear thin.
So why exactly don't Aussies want to change over? Oh yeah "but I go shopping every day and so I need a 4WD..." was another one. I am so not kidding.
What did that person buy on an average shopping trip? "A cement mixer, two wheelbarrows, a kilo of potatoes, two steaks, a pack of frozen peas - oh, and I'd better have a four burner BBQ while I'm here" ???
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I'm probably not *quite* typical.
The average Aussie, as it seems from that talkback that morning, is not sold on EVs. I'm an EVangelist.
I've desperately wanted an EV ever since the price of petrol rose over $1/litre. That's not just me being a tight-arse, but certainly that has something to do with it. More important to me though (ever since the first production Teslas at any rate) was that fossil fuels were avoidable.
By 2015 or whenever the first model S's rolled out, global warming was already a cert, too. So for all those reasons I find myself wanting massive EV adoption. Actually, I wanted to adopt an EV myself. And never quite able to, ironically.
And yet...
It's 2022 and I live less than 200km from Melbourne and I could really really - I mean really - do with transport that doesn't cost us a significant percentage of our pension when we have to trek to the Big Smoke for medical or meeting family visitors from interstate that didn't know we weren't just in a suburb of Melbourne.
I'd like to let you know that I'd move heavens and earth to be able to trade in our lovely comfortable but thirsty RAV4 for a smallish EV, as long as it was suited to slight mobility impairment. And I'd do it in a heartbeat. And yet I haven't.
Aside from the fact that EVs are still being priced way out of the range where people can more easily afford them, there's one other problem.
But first, that pricing issue. Yes, EVs use batteries and are new technology and most manufacturers are going to try and get their R&D back, but I suggest that maybe they should be more worried about who the hell they're going to sell them to and price accordingly.
It's pretty simple: The world's been dealt a triple-tap:
- Wages have remained stagnant or reduced in relation to inflation. People have had less to spend so companies are seeing a reduction in their profits. Corporations have recouped profits by lowering the number of workers they employ and raising prices. That's helped inflation outpace incomes. Mad, stupid, totally needless, spiral.
- The COVID pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have caused people to be unable to earn more, governments have in some cases stepped in and supported workers, but on the whole people (and governments) have lost money hand over fist and what they had has often gone to online sellers overseas rather than bricks and mortar stores, leading to a few more retrenchments, further screwing with the economies.
- And climate change is starting to bite, leaving climate refugees putting strains on their new host countries - and a growing public awareness of how bad the big corporations are and how much damage they've caused.
So now corporations are trying to cover their deficits - by throwing the world's people and resources under the bus. But somehow they're not accepting the fact that those people are the ones they want buying their products. Including EVs.
The answer's multifold
Car manufacturers should already be seeing the writing o the wall. Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles are dead. If they've been following the JIT (Just In Time) philosophy then it should be relatively easy - dead stop on ICEVs, consider that as dead, put all efforts into producing EVs and selling them close to cost.
Recognise that a reduction in profits is better than closing the factory doors. It's stupid to kill the goose when you're dependent on the eggs.
Governments also need to shoulder this - put the impossibly high tariffs and import fees on ICEVs, you'll earn a fricken fortune until people catch on.
Give some of that money back in the form of lower tariffs and fees on EVs, and in a significant rebate for early EV buyers in return for their selling their ICEVs either to a bigger idiot or to the wreckers' yards or recyclers.
Make it an incentive with a limit, say five years.
Instead of fuel excises and tariffs, use the rest of that money for the final piece of the puzzle - government-run charging stations. Put two in the surrounding country for every one you set up in urban and suburban areas, now you have a new source of income.
Put a charging station on every suburban light pole, turn inner-city parking meters into dual-function income earners.And for every one you create, create that extra two in the country. Congratulations, you're now your own source of parking and energy revenue.
Because . . .
The one stumbling block most prospective EV buyers say is their biggest detraction from buying is the paucity of charging stations.
The one stumbling block most EV owners say they have is not enough charging stations.
As Australia votes for 2022, the hope is that the LNP coalition will lose, and take their incredibly fossilised attitudes with them and let the rest of us clean up the country.
Footnote:
In addition to writing these articles I'm also experimenting with ways of recycling waste that can be done at the cottage industry or community hub levels, not so much because it'll magically convert 100% of local waste into recycled useful articles, but because people who are doing these sorts of activities are likely to talk about them to people in their community, and so raise even more awareness of the issues and dangers.
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