Michael Green

Writer and producer

  • About
  • Print
  • Audio
  • Podcast
  • Projects
  • Book
  • Twitter

Electric vehicles lead the charge

In Environment, The Age on April 18, 2015

WHEN Justin Harding accelerates silently out of a carpark, passers-by do double-takes.

“People wonder what on Earth is going on with that mysterious car that seems to go without starting its engine,” he says, happily.

His number-plates reveal the secret: ELCTR0. Harding, an engineer from Blackburn, finished converting his Mitsubishi Lancer to battery power two years ago.

Tomorrow, he’ll drive it to Hawthorn for the annual Electric Vehicle Expo at Swinburne University, from 10 am until 4 pm. The free event is coordinated by the Alternative Technology Association.

There’ll be electric bikes and factory-line electric cars from Tesla, BMW and Nissan, as well as several models converted by tinkerer-enthusiasts.

Credit: Justin Harding

Electric cars have been slow to take off in Australia. Figures compiled by bloggers suggest that five years ago, there were just over 100 around the country.

By the end of 2014, the number had only risen to 1900 (including plug-in hybrids). But most of those – nearly 1200 – were first registered last year.

Next month, luxury electric carmaker Tesla will open a showroom and charging station in Richmond. The company launched in Australia in December and has announced plans to open charging stations spanning the route from Melbourne to Brisbane by 2016.

There are already 23 charging stations around Melbourne, many of them free. The City of Moreland built the state’s first fast-charging station at the Coburg civic centre in July 2013, and there are now 6 across the municipality.

The council’s climate change officer, Stuart Nesbitt, oversees its electric vehicle program. “One of the barriers to buying these cars is the perception that there’s not enough public charging infrastructure,” he says. “Where possible, we’re trying to expand it.”

There are two electric cars in the council’s fleet, but that number will increase, Nesbitt says. New research conducted for the council shows that electric vehicles can be cheaper over the life of a typical lease, because of their low running cost.

For his own commute, Nesbitt – a former diesel mechanic – has traded in his car for an electric scooter. He fits the demographic for electric vehicle enthusiasts in Australia: they’re often well educated middle-aged men, early adopters of technology, who have solar panels of their own.

But Nesbitt thinks it won’t stay that way: “Electric vehicles are now where mobile phones were with the Motorola brick in the 1980s,” he says.

Credit: Justin Harding

Harding’s car cost about $20,000 to convert, mainly in batteries. In 2009, when he began the project, DIY was the only option. Now, every major vehicle maker has electric cars in planning or production, and their price has fallen significantly.

“The more I looked into it, the more I became convinced that electric vehicles are the way of the future,” he says. “It’s just a more sensible way to power transport, rather than burning fossil fuel and capturing explosions. The simplicity and efficiency of an electric motor wins hands down.”

Read this article at The Age online

Archive

    • ▼Print
      • ▼Environment
        • Contested territory
        • Community power
        • The last drop of water in Broken Hill
        • Totally Renewable Yackandandah
        • Electric vehicles lead the charge
        • You can never have too much garlic
        • Renewed interest in renewables
        • Reviving the race on a cleaner Yarra
        • Interview with Kevin Anderson
        • Renewable energy: power to the people
        • Left to pick up the pieces
        • Mining morality or vilifying coal?
        • A stake in the business
        • Round and round we go
        • A death in the family
        • Smarter urban water
        • Little fox, big problem
        • Flirting with disaster
        • Into the wind
        • The Great Barrier Reef: just unwell or terminally ill?
        • Seams of discontent
        • Bill McKibben
        • Unburnable carbon
        • Gelato at Brunetti's
        • The living fossil
        • Climate adaptation plan: the devil is in the appendix
        • Interview with Annie Leonard
        • Planning for a climate disaster
        • Bursting the carbon bubble
        • Doing the legwork
        • Repair Cafe
        • Switching to solar
        • Farming on the fringe: Q&A with Dave Sands
        • Farming on the fringe: Q&A with Anna Meroni
        • Farming on the fringe
        • Overshadowing
        • Greg Hatton's factory
        • Q&A: The Sharehood
        • Q&A with Carolyn Steel
        • Greener apartment blocks
        • Star ratings on the ground
        • Down to earth
        • Pacific islands face change that's hard to believe in
        • Life cycle assessment
        • Green renters
        • House energy ratings
        • Food glorious food!
        • 'Cash for clunkers' is a lemon
        • The shadow in the valley
        • Meet your neighbours
        • Six-star homes
        • Greensburg, Kansas
        • Towns in Transition
        • Sustainable House Day
        • Primate fear
        • The biggest catch
        • Close encounters: why medium-density living is the way of the future
        • Vegetable Power
        • From blue to green
        • Rubbish to riches
        • The old and the new
        • Teaming up and powering down
        • The green payoff
        • Power from the ground up
        • Permaculture club
        • Best footprint forward
        • Thinking outside the bin
        • They all want to change the world
        • When good neighbours become green
        • Beyond the stars: the rise and rise of domestic power use
        • Block busters: why apartment owners are seeing green
        • High five: why the new renovation rating is all about smart design
        • The lambs in winter
        • Global cooling
        • Waste not
        • Tour of duty
        • Powering down
        • Picking up the pieces
        • Pooling resources for a green future
        • Distance education
        • Globe trotter
      • ►Social justice
      • ►Community development
      • ►Culture
    • ►Blog
    • ►Audio
    • ►Projects

© Copyright 2017 Michael Green · All Rights Reserved