Rhrosty; The only electric car that I am aware of that has a range of
300km is the $100k + Tesla which has a large battery.
The Mitsubishi imev has a range of about 100km and the Nissan leaf has
a range of 150km.
Range anxiety seems to disappear after the driver gets into the habit
of plugging in whenever he arrives home.

I placed an preliminary order for a Nissan Leaf and last week had a
call from Nissan to confirm I was still interested as delivery was for June.
I then said you must now have a price.
Yes, he said $51,500 including charger !
Now this price is $20,000 dearer than the US price and $10,000 dearer
than the UK price for the same car.

I told him to forget it, as I don't pay the "Rip the Aussie Off Price"
I got a lot of spin about Australian design rules, taxes etc etc
but he had no real answer.

The Nissan Leaf has a good reputation in the US and the owners seem
very enthusiastic about the car and it would have suited me for the type of travel that I do.

I will just wait until the market can start pulling the price down.
The electric Ford Focus is reported to be available later this year.

Curmudgeon:

Africa is the last great oil frontier, Madagascar has been targeted by Exxon and Norway’s Statoil since 2005. Statoil has found a billion barrels of oil equivalent. That may seem like a huge find but consider this: the largest conventional oil field in the world, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has produced 65 billion barrels of oil since 1951 from initial reserves of over 100 billion barrels. The Madagascar field extends down to Mozambique where Anadarko have found 1.3 billion barrels of oil. Further inland Tallow has found 1 billion barrels of proven reserves in the Ugandan Albert basin.

Plenty of other African countries are now being explored by a number of interests but they have yet to show any major finds.

Oil pundits might be saying “game on” but really all there is to show at the moment is a lot of hope and we all know that at the end of the day hope won’t fill the petrol tank. The truth is that most of the new oil finds throughout the world are less than 2 billion barrels each. The global annual consumption is currently a little less than 33 billion barrels per year. There is a huge disconnect between the size of the fields currently being discovered and the predicted future demand for oil.

Conventional or un-conventional, we are in for a very rough ride ‘oil wise’ ahead.

You might also be interested in the following link: you rate a mention in the references as number 105 in this important piece of work!

http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/CanRenewableEnergySustainConsumerSocietiesTrainer.pd

“Do people really think that industry and Governments of the West will just let it all run out overnight”

Now these are the same people that are only interested in getting re-elected or making even more profits.
Yes sure they are going to be altruistic and look to the future of the world.
I am also looking up at a squadron of pigs as they pass overhead. I don’t think so.
The one thing that could save the “end of the world as we know it” has not been mentioned as usual.
Lower the population.
If the population keeps increasing at the present rate (and there is no way that it will not) we have no chance of continuing on with our present life style.
Keep up the good work though and discuss all the different ways of re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and it will take our minds off the Armageddon approaching.
You could be fooled into thinking that this has not happened before with other species and also some sub branches of humans.

Geoff of Perth - thanks for the reference where I got footnoted.. interesting.. now as for the African stuff you're quoting, sorry but you're misleading yourself.. admittedly there have been no on-shore oil finds such as the OPEC fields for some time.

But search on resources curse and Brazil.. they are trying to come to terms with being a major exporter due to massive, new offshore oil finds - an upper estimate of 150 billion barrels or so, last time I looked, and inital forecasts are always far short of final production. No reason to believe its a one-off. Other fields are out there. So the next big thing in oil prioduction is not Africa but ocean. (Although but please note you seem to have forgotten Nigeria, which has been producing oil for decades.)

Also, as I have previously noted, you still have the problem of deciding whether the undoubted production plateau is a result of OPEC deliberately not investing in production, as economists have suggested, or some sort of limit in its fields. Considering that production is not showing any real signs of major decline, it may well be the first option.

So sorry, the world will be in oil for the next few decades and maybe the next couple of centuries at least. Let peak oil die in peace.

Curmudgeon
If we accept that 'peak oil' is 'peak conventional oil' then it's a reality. Peak Oil occurred in 2006. But if it includes all the unconventional oil then we may have some way to go before reaching the peak, depending on the viability or net energy from the ultra-deep ocean deposits and the Arctic etc. If the EROEI is too low they'll stay right there in the ground. The world community may deem the Athabsaca tar sands too polluting and do to Canada what is now being done to Iran - exclude them. All of which brings the peak forward.

Sarnian
I'm the first to put my hand up and say population is the problem but it is tied to oil supply and climate change - both impact on carrying capacity. We have supported seven billion people largely thanks to cheap oil. The population will have to decline as oil inevitably will.

Even if oil reserves were not increasing, which they are with Venezuela now having more reserves than SA, Shale gas, which is convertible to petroleum equivalents, has enormous reserves, vastly surpassing known oil reserves.

And even if Shale gas were not around, which, despite the new alliance between the wretched greenies and gullible farmers, it is there is always abiotic oil.

But keep ignoring these' facts'; I know how you inner city gamers and Gibsonites fancy end of world scenarios.

A special mention to whichever pixie said this:

"We must, as global consumers, learn to live ‘simpler lives’ using less resources and energy and build a new economic system based on equality and sustainability."

And here's to that paragon of the simpler life, the one celled amoeba.