Electric cars in bus lanes

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#1547921 7-May-2016 10:15

Minister defends the electric cars in bus and transit lanes part of the policy:

NZHerald: Transport Minister Simon Bridges told the Weekend Herald allowing electric vehicles in transit and bus lanes was the "single most effective" non-financial incentive that the Government could do and referenced Norway which implemented the policy in 2005 alongside generous tax breaks. Electric cars now account for nearly one in five of all new cars sold there.

No, minister. It is a bad idea. The generous tax breaks Norway offered were probably enough of an incentive. It might be a good problem for the minister to have, but it is not a good problem for cycle and bus commuters to deal with.

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#1547942 7-May-2016 10:58

blackjack17: There is no scam going on, high risk activities have high acc leveys.

There are lots of high risk activities that do not command the person to pay a higher ACC levy, in fact, basically anything you do recreationally except for riding/driving on the public roads, is funded from your income-based levy. It's my opinion that ACC levies should be scrapped totally and ACC directly funded from (increased) tax take with an appropriate proportion from company and income taxes, and of course ACC's investments.

To pull this back to topic, after abolition of ACC levies, an environmental tax of some description should be added to vehicle registrations, more environmental impact, more tax, an incentive directly to cleaner vehicles WHATEVER the technology that drives them or what they look like. Said tax should take into account both the environmental impact of operating the vehicle directly (emissions at the tail pipe) and of the impact incurred in for example, mining lithium, an initially complex calculation I'm sure but one that could be boiled down to something simple enough with some generalisations to be workable while maintaining it's purpose.

Oh, and the money from said environmental tax, that should be ring-fenced, clearly and only to be used for environmental projects.

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#1547965 7-May-2016 13:15

gzt:
No, minister. It is a bad idea. The generous tax breaks Norway offered were probably enough of an incentive. It might be a good problem for the minister to have, but it is not a good problem for cycle and bus commuters to deal with.

You realise that there is access for EVs (not plugin hybrids) in the bus lanes in Norway? There is only a few stretches in Oslo where they have removed the right of the EVs to use the bus lane.

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Batman

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#1547966 7-May-2016 13:19

Interestingly, I had a discussion with some paramedics - some of them aren't touching your electric car if it has a major crash due to risk of fatal electrocution, as there isn't any guidelines or policies around these things at the moment.

I could be wrong, but that's what they told me.

Dairyxox

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#1547969 7-May-2016 13:25

gzt: Minister defends the electric cars in bus and transit lanes part of the policy:

NZHerald: Transport Minister Simon Bridges told the Weekend Herald allowing electric vehicles in transit and bus lanes was the "single most effective" non-financial incentive that the Government could do and referenced Norway which implemented the policy in 2005 alongside generous tax breaks. Electric cars now account for nearly one in five of all new cars sold there.

No, minister. It is a bad idea. <snip>

Why?

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#1547974 7-May-2016 13:37

joker97:
Interestingly, I had a discussion with some paramedics - some of them aren't touching your electric car if it has a major crash due to risk of fatal electrocution, as there isn't any guidelines or policies around these things at the moment.

I could be wrong, but that's what they told me.

That's an interesting one. The standard Prius is around 280v, the Leaf is around 360v. There are enough Prius on the road they really need training for that. If there is currently no hybrid/EV training occuring that needs to change. I expect it is fire crews with the jaws of life etc who will naturally possess the detailed knowledge at present.

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sleemanj

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#1547976 7-May-2016 13:47

joker97: there isn't any guidelines or policies around these things at the moment.

Ambulance personnel are emergency medical specialists, not legislative lawyers nor electrical engineers.

There are a number of standards to be met, even if you are making your own EV...

http://www.lvvta.org.nz/documents/standards/LVVTA_STD_Electric_and_Hybrid_Vehicles.pdf

Edit to add: unless what you are saying is that the Ambulance personnel have no guidelines about how to approach a damaged electric vehicle, in which case, fair enough, but the chance of any failure existing that could possibly cause an electric shock from the HV portions of the system in a damaged EV, is pretty minimal, due in part to the above, and also of course due to physics - current flows in a circuit if you want to get shocked by an EV's high voltage, you need to insert yourself in a circuit between the HV+ and HV-.

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gzt

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#1547980 7-May-2016 13:54

jarledb:
gzt:
No, minister. It is a bad idea. The generous tax breaks Norway offered were probably enough of an incentive. It might be a good problem for the minister to have, but it is not a good problem for cycle and bus commuters to deal with.

You realise that there is access for EVs (not plugin hybrids) in the bus lanes in Norway?

I don't read Norwegian and the English sources were unclear on that point. Happy to take your word for it.

There is only a few stretches in Oslo where they have removed the right of the EVs to use the bus lane.

Ok.

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#1547981 7-May-2016 13:55

sleemanj:

Edit to add: unless what you are saying is that the Ambulance personnel have no guidelines about how to approach a damaged electric vehicle, in which case, fair enough, but the chance of any failure existing that could possibly cause an electric shock from the HV portions of the system in a damaged EV, is pretty minimal, due in part to the above, and also of course due to physics - current flows in a circuit if you want to get shocked by an EV's high voltage, you need to insert yourself in a circuit between the HV+ and HV-.

That is my understanding.

In fact see here

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#1547982 7-May-2016 14:00

Cars can get somewhat mangled in accidents so it is probably a fair question above.

What is the scope of battery electrolyte risk?

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#1547985 7-May-2016 14:07

joker97:

That is my understanding.

In fact see http://www.automobilemag.com/news/license-plates-for-electric-cars-to-prevent-workers-from-electrocution/

FWIW, Tesla has pretty extensive documentation for rescue and other services (for it's vehicles specifically)...

https://www.teslamotors.com/firstresponders

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gzt

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#1547988 7-May-2016 14:17

Similar for Toyota:

http://www.evsafetytraining.org/resources/auto-manufacturer-resources/toyota.aspx

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#1547989 7-May-2016 14:20

gzt: Similar for Toyota:

http://www.evsafetytraining.org/resources/auto-manufacturer-resources/toyota.aspx

Yeah try and get your volunteer paramedic to memorise the internet?

Maybe they should standardise things a bit.

gzt

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#1547990 7-May-2016 14:26

Yeah I'm sure it's a challenge. Toyota is the biggest by far. Hopefully they can come through on their vehicles with some training assistance if not happening already in NZ.

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#1547995 7-May-2016 14:47

The other issue is electrical fire = extremely deadly. Not sure how relevant it is to EVs. Do all EVs have mandatory fire extinguishers?

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