mattwnz:

 

 

 

I hope so. I do wonder why we are polluting the earth with excess CO2 and over chemicals from petrol cars, when we could be all electric, generated from wind, sun and water. But I guess oil companies don't make money if they don't sell petrol. But the end resolve is that we have caused damage to the earth, and more cost due to global warming, extreme weather events, and rising sea levels. We can thank the generations that came before us that started that off, as I believe electric cars were around before petrol cars. 

 

 

 

Several enabling technologies have only happened relatively recently to make electric cars practical.

Li-ion batteries. For a long time the only major rechargeable battery technologies available were Lead based (Flooded lead acid / AGM), and Nickel based (NiCd / NiMH) Which all suffered from problems like poor weight to energy storage ratios and poor number of charge cycles until battery fails.

MOSFETs and IGBTs. Electronic components that allow high speed switching of high voltages and currents. They enabled the building of light, efficient, and high power DC-DC converters.

Cheap, high speed computers and micro-controllers.

Brushless DC motors. No carbon brushes to wear out, waste power, and which require maintenance. Yet practical Brushless DC motors also required MOSFETs and micro-controllers to be invented first as well.

Electric cars were originally better than early petrol cars. Back when petrol cars had to be hand cranked, engines used "hit and miss" speed regulation (engine ran at full throttle all the time as they didn't even have throttles then, and speed regulation was via a governor that induced a missfire to regulate engine speed). And required constant cleaning of things like spark plugs to keep them working. Electric cars used flooded lead acid batteries, carbon brush DC motors, and speed control was a big selector switch that switched different resistors in and out of the electric motor circuit. Wasting lots of electricity as heat in the process. Early electric cars were much nicer to drive than petrol cars of the time. But carburettor technology improved, and electric starting was invented. Solving most of the problems with early petrol cars.

On a more serious note, some laws definitely need to change. The low user regulations need to be repealed. Because of them, anyone on a low user plan can purchase LPG and diesel cheaper on a per KW/Hr basis than electricity. Complete madness that 0% renewable fossil fuels are available for a cheaper delivered price that 80%+ renewable electricity. The low user rates simply increase the price everyone pays for electricity. And they also mean that the electricity price that someone pays bears no resemblance to the carbon emissions caused by generating that electricity. Or the amount of network investment required to get that electricity to them.

The resource management act doesn't properly weigh up local environmental effects, with regional and national + international environmental effects.

Building a hydro power station - Earthworks, habitat loss, forest loss from building a dam and manmade lake. Vs reduction in carbon emissions from displacement of fossil fuelled generation, and cheaper electricity meaning fossil fuelled heating getting replaced with electric heating ect.

Allowing more greenfields and brownfields housing redevelopment. - Habitat loss ect (greenfields) and more people in the same area, houses closer together, changing neighbourhood character (brownfields) Vs People being more able to afford to live close to work, education, ect - Less car use, more public transport use, more time for leisure activities instead of stuck in traffic.

Allowing more farming - Water pollution, methane emissions from animals Vs Overseas farms where the animals are fed grains grown off site instead of just eating grass. And where they are kept in large barns over winter that are heated with fossil fuels. NZ farming is mostly really efficient, More carbon emissions from NZ farming will almost certainly mean less overall worldwide emissions. Due to NZ dairy, beef ect exports displacing output from more emissions intensive overseas farms.

Local effects get far too much weighting.