Aussies Love EVs ?

Designing a plug-in hybrid with good efficiency, a substantial all-electric range, and also decent performance so it drives more like an fully electric car and not like a Prius, and additionally hitting a non-luxury car budget is a challenging design task when you have to lug around both a battery pack and an engine, with current technology it has to be very finely-balanced design or there's not much point to the exercise.

Except that most people don't drive those distances. As EVs become more popular there will be enough locations to charge even in the great expanse of the Australian desert. I had this conversation once with a fellow from down under and he tried to argue it would be impractical to install a megawatt of chargers in a town that might only be wired for a megawatt as if they never run new distribution facilities.

It's not my country, but I think the arguments don't hold up in the long run. I received the same sort of mindless arguments from a radio group in the UK who felt it was impossible to conceive of wiring enough curbside charging to facilitate residential EV ownership in places like London. I was shown a picture of some narrow street with cars parked half on the sidewalk. Again, not my country. Maybe there will be places that just can't figure out technology well enough to allow EVs to be practical. Or maybe others will "get it" and show these arguments are without value.

We will see. It's not like EVs are going to wait. They are happening and it's not stopping.

I'm driving a Lexus GS300h which is just a Toyota dressed up. Changing from a Volvo S80 my fuel consumption dropped around 50% for a car with similar size and engine.

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** They do well in city driving - stop/start type stuff. For pick up and delivery.

But not without some drawbacks. As they are not (yet) required to have reversing beepers, one can sneak up on you when least expected. This can be very dangerous.

New laws will force this on makers to the dismay of owners who love their stealth car.

..... Phil

their stealth car.

But that makes a change from drivers (in all countries?) who love noisy engines... Mike, UK.

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** Both are irresponsible idiots. But noise doesn't injure or kill people.

..... Phil

Looks like that's a standard parallel hybrid I think? Some confusion on what "self-charging" means on my part perhaps; all the charge in a standard hybrid is coming from regeneration energy and every plug-in hybrid i'm aware of works approximately the same in range-extending mode.

That one never was on sale AFAIK in the US,;the figures I see are claiming 50-something mpg combined for that car that seems pretty optimistic for a 2.5L four in a car that weighs nearly 2 tons.

If there are people, there are going to be sockets, but the question is, how much the socket can be loaded. In rural Australia, Alaska, Africa and Canada, the Single Wire Earth Return (SWER) system is sometimes used. In this system a single isolated (fence)wire carries a single medium voltage phase (typically 12 to 19 kV) to widely dispersed customer. At each customer, a step down transformer will produce 240 V for the customer. The cold end of the step down transformer primary is connected to a grounding electrode and the 19 kV line return current flows through the ground back to the source, suffering some extra losses, especially with dry ground.

This is a quite low power system, with typically a few kVA/customer, so it is quite unlikely to charge a single EV at 10/20 kW, more like

2 kW/EV would be more realistic. Thus if your car battery is 100 kWh, you can sleep the night waiting for a full charge at 10 kW.

Look at the medium voltage lines along the road in rural areas, if there is only a single wire with an insulator in a pole, it is a SWER system and thus the available power in sockets in houses along the line is very limited. With three phase medium voltage lines, the power available for charging is significantly greater.

Some car manufacturers use really questionable advertisement :-).

Perhaps you should listen to the video. He talks a lot more sense than you do about EVs. He says he really does like his one:

Yes they are not at present cheaper for Australians doing average mileage, well that is not a surprise, and not relevant to most of your drivel about EVs.

I do see EVs on the road in Sydney from time to time - mostly Teslas. Nobody we know has one.

are allocated some bespoke fancy-schmancy 240 volt garage-charger is unnecessary, a regular wall socket and the charge cable the car comes

The average over all cars seems to be closer to 95%. This came up here about a year ago, and got flogged to death then.

Our car gets used a whole lot less. We had it out yesterday, and the tank is still 3/4 full, though it last got filled last April.

IIRC, there was ES300h in the US, which is pretty much similar, with a 2.4 litre Atkinson cycle engine and two electric BLDC motors combined with a planetary drive. The setup is pretty same as in a Prius.

For the 7 years i have driven it, the average consumption is 6.4 litres per 100 km, whatever it may be in MPG. My Volvo wanted around 12.

A bit lame not bothering to use the Google converter to come up with 37 and 20 mpg respectively.

One useful aspect of using consumption rather than mileage is the way it shows mpg has to go to infinity to make useful advances to approach zero carbon emissions. Consumption just goes to zero. 37 sounds like a great improvement over 20, but it doesn't indicate so clearly this leaves half the problem on the table. Do you buy toilet paper that only wipes half your rear?

I rented a Ford (don't remember the model) mid-size Hybrid to drive between Bakersfield and Vegas. For short time down hill, it registered over 40MPG, but charging the battery to 100%. It can certainly use a bigger battery going downhill, but we don't go downhill all the time. I think the average was around 25MPG.

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** He says exactly the same I do.

** Then he changed his opinion:

Fucking watch it all.

** It is to most - cos *cheaper mileage* is the main claim made about EVs. ** I never post drivel - but you post nothing else. Pathetic EV wanker

...... Phil

The 7th gen Hyundai Elantra easily gets about 36 combined out of its 2.0 Atkinson-cycle four without any hybrid assist, though at ~3100 lbs it's a lighter car than any Lexus sedan AFAIK.

Interesting...i have a 2016 volvo s80, 4 cyl turbo & intercooler- factory stock. best I've gotten has been 28 mpg highway (23 city) which is quite nice for a vehicle of this size. My 2021 Toyota Highlander hybrid does get 35 MPG highway and 33 city. Surprising that your Lexus mpg is bad, relatively speaking. J

Just taking the Cybertruck for a spin in the outback:

37 mpg is about right for a 2.5L four with a one-motor parallel hybrid system in a sedan weighing about two tons from several years back; the 2021 Highlander uses a two-motor system, a two-motor system can provide power to the wheels and also recapture regeneration energy simultaneously so would expect improved efficiency.

Late model Hyundai Elantras can get about 37 mpg combined with a regular

2.0L Atkinson-cycle four, no hybrid, which is excellent for a car that doesn't at all feel under-powered when pushed. Being significantly lighter at about 3000 lbs helps a lot I expect.

Best mpg I ever got running my Chevy Volt as a pure hybrid, battery depleted was 51 mpg over a 50 mile drive thru the hills of eastern Connecticut; average speed about 50 mph on an undivided highway, giving it just enough power to top each hill at speed and then coasting down. quite a feat I thought in a car also weighing almost two tons but the Cd of 0.27 helps a lot.