We are told that the manufacturing of electric cars creates more emissions than conventional car production. Battery life is limited. Batteries are expensive to replace. Batteries have to be disposed of. Silly idea really; just like all the AGM, CO2 scaremongering and other lies.

The decider might not be CO2 but petrol prices. When the magic elixir hits $2/L the loudest call will be for an excise cut, not electric cars. It seems obvious to many that millions of EVs being charged overnight is a good case for nuclear baseload. Not so apparently. The electric motorist can transfer charge from their solar home battery. Something call smart charging is another panacea. I think that means if the wind doesn't blow that night you don't have to go to work the next day.

Too bad for nurses, cleaners and security guards working night shifts in the city but living miles out of town. They won't be rich enough to afford the unsubsidised balance on an EV. That will be for inner suburb doctors.

I'm not sure we'll ever build another coal fired power station. Bank after bank have made it clear there's no appetite to invest in coal!

Yes we're burning coal at the minute and recharging electric vehicles at night makes perfect sense and helps keep the turbines winding over most economically and under load, meaning cleaner burns.

Some folk will put a solar array on the roof then add a battery wall to reduce the cost of running and recharging the electric vehicle.

Funding will decide what new power generation becomes the new norm. And for my money that's going to be carbon free, molten salt thorium. And because this combination almost alone allows for the braydon cycle and Hot CO2 turning much smaller more efficient turbines.

Virtually anywhere we choose, making miles and miles of expensive transmission lines redundant!

Given that combination? Carbon free electricity for less than 2 cents PKH! Thorium is the most energy dense material on the planet, is fertile not fissile and can't be used to make a thorium bomb nor produce plutonium.

Some of the products of its reaction could conceivably be used in some sort of bomb. But only after the boffins creating it, had all perished from massive gamma radiation poisoning.

Yes the system does produce high levels of gamma radiation. But simple concrete walls protect the operators from any of it!

I'd have one in my backyard, in the knowledge there's less rogue radiation escaping from a typical reactor than your average coal fired power station, which emits several other nasties as well.

Just because there's an appetite amongst the gormless, conservative, money faced element? Doesn't mean coal is our best choice to make electricity!
Alan B.

When the technology is developed to allow photo-voltaic cells to be shaped into car panels, parking or driving your can in the sun will recharge its batteries. Removing the weight of a heavy cast-iron engine block, albeit replacing it with lighter batteries, will reduce the weight needing to be moved. Among other side-effects this will reduce wear and tear on our roads.

If we reduced the excise on diesel fuel for trains and increased it for semi-trailers and road trains, this would also reduce road damage and make electric cars safer.

What is required is a change in public perceptions so that driving a fossil-fuel powered vehicle is less acceptable unless there are strong reasons for their use.

Brian of Buderim

Makes sense....

Sorry Brian & diver, it makes no sense at all.

First we can shape photovoltaic cells around a car, but the little power they produce is nothing compared to the energy required. It is a nice exercise in the solar challenge, driving a featherweight toy, with a mini driver across the centre, but it has nothing to do with transport. May be in another few decades, but not now.

We replaced cast iron with alloy engines decades ago, but cars are 35% heavier today. Batteries are much heavier than engines. They are also a problem. Someone here left a rarely used remote control transmitter on 4 weeks ago. Lucky I wanted it, as its Lipo battery had gone flat, & blown up like a balloon, a standard result. In that state they are very prone to ignite. I was lucky, but granny leaving her electric car with a door not shut tight, & thus a light on, could burn her house down.

Most goods are transported by truck, because: 1/ Trains don't go most places, so you still need a truck to deliver stuff to its destination. 2/ Loading & unloading trains is incredibly expensive. 3/ Government picking winners with subsidies & excise/taxes invariably is a disaster. Haven't you noticed your electricity bill recently?

There is not a single saving in any form of pollution, & indeed a large increase in it making electric cars & particularly their batteries.

In view of the above, I think it is your perception that is wrong Brian, too much ideology & not enough facts I'm afraid.

Don't be a miserable killjoy Geoff,
How would you like it if other people told you what you should and should not spend your money on?
We live in a capitalist world, you're welcome to launch your own car into space if you want; if you can afford it.

Sure we could whinge and whine;

'What a waste of natural resources'
'Think of the money wasted and the children we could've fed and clothed'
'Think of the medicines and lives we could've helped and saved'
'He could've launched a satellite and brought communications to millions of people'
'What of the emissions and harm to people on earth'

Shut up! Stop whining!

Who cares, what do you think humans would put that expenditure to better use making wars upon ourselves?
How much is wasted bombing and blowing ourselves and our own planet up every day?

I like the 'romantic' aspect, and can stop for a moment every now and again and think about that car.
How many years will it exist in space before someone or something retrieves it?
Will it survive for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years in space?
After which will it still be able to be driven?
And start instantly after being charged?

What we become of that car?
Will a human being ever drive the roadster across the desert plains of Mars?
- I guess this is a question for future generations to answer.

These things inspire me and give me hope that the human race can still achieve amazing things.
- In light of all the stupid pointless day to day social issues and problems our societies currently face.

Nobody complains Geoff when you hose off your driveway or under your pergola yet you're still wasting precious drinking water.

So all in all, I think 'Roadster in Space' its kinda cool, and I think you're being a sook.

Recent advances in solar voltaic technology right here in OZ. Would seem to suggest a virtual doubling of energy output For half the area exposed to sunlight?

Given these very recent reports can be believed or validated? Brian's idea might not sound too foolish, just the know nothings every ready to bag anything that isn't coal?

I'm willing to believe if the vehicle is used for the daily commute and spends most of the day in full sunlight in some carpark or other. The batteries could be fully topped up?

In any event, I seem to recall reading somewhere that a fully solar powered car, would still limp home at 25 K's on just the solar array. And that was with quite dated old technology. The new cells might be capable of obtaining a crawl home speed of sixty clicks. And only if all the charge is gone.

Something that efficient would likely completely recharge the batteries during the park?

I'm still hoping and with reason, that the boffins now working on a laser activated thorium power plant, will iron out any bugs and start producing miniaturized thorium power plants soon. Plants that'll run for 100 years on just 8 grams of thorium and at a cost of around $100.00.

And when not driving your car/truck/bus, down some endless highway, able to plug into your house and power that up as well?

Given its massive potential, little wonder the fossil fuel advocates and big nuclear are going ape and trying by any and all means, including some political arm bending? To prevent the development of thorium!
Alan B.

Alan you need to get those huge lefty prisms from infront of your eyes, so you can see the real world.

What on earth makes you think than any company wanting to invest in power generation gives a stuff what the generation system is? While our fool government are giving subsidies, & forcing the public to pay through the nose for wind & solar, that is what we will get. Cut those subsidies & forced usage, & it will be coal, or nuclear if the Greens can be eradicated.

The only people interested in the energy source used are the energy suppliers, & perhaps the ratbag greens. For 90% of us, we'll take the cheapest thanks, & don't give a brass razoo what generates it.

The same goes for cars. Slip into my garage any time, & install any power plant you like in my cars. As long as they go as far, as well, & cost no more, I don't care what they are.

I expect that in 50 years, if we are still permitted personal cars, an unlikely prospect, & fool government gets out of the way, that our cars will be steam driven, with the steam generated by some form of nuclear power. It could be anti gravity or black magic for all most of us care, we want quick, reliable transport. Of course someone may have to eradicate the green ratbags to achieve this.

So mate stop fighting enemies generated in your own head, most of us don't give a damn about coal or petroleum, but we don't irrationally hate them either.

No need to look into space to see our future with these trendy ideas. Only need to look around Russia on google earth. The cool ideas of the former "in crowd" there are clearly visible rusting and crumbling away like ruins of ancient civilisations.

So the idea is for lighter cars to make them more fuel efficient.....and when you get the lighter cars the question becomes 'what is going to keep them stable on the road?....sand bags in the boot?...and then you're back to where you started.
Get in a Hyundai and see how safe you feel when another car passes you by in either direction....reeel safe....get in a Mercedes and feel the difference.
So there we are in weightless cars getting all the efficiency possible except than any impact from opposing forces sees you several kilometres in another direction....how much better I feel when reading the nonsense some on this forum espouse....with the only saving grace being, 'thank God no one pays any mind'

Hi SD and thanks for a good example of the logical fallacy "reductio ad absurdum" where you take a logical idea and reduce it to an absurd level.

No electric car will ever be weightless or even close to it: they will be lighter, to reduce the weight that has to be moved, and smoother to reduce aerodynamic drag. The reduced weight, note 'reduced', means that the impact of the car on the road will be reduced and roads where heavy vehicles are banned will last much longer. A good example of this is the road network inside Sydney's Centennial Park and inside the Bicentennial Park.

The development of electric vehicles is continuing: all that is needed now is commitment from the Federal Government which will probably come after the coming change of government.

Special delivery that is quite wrong. In the 50s to 80s most cars were well under a ton, & were perfectly roadworthy. In 1968 I won the Bathurst 100, driving down conrod straight at 180 miles per hour, in a car that 1130 pounds. If it had not been perfectly stable, I would not be here now. Weight has nothing to do with road holding.

However Brian of Buderim is equally wrong. The weight of the battery pack & electric transmission exceeds the weight of the average modern car engine, & transmission. Their weight, or lack of it has nothing to do with their viability. It is the extra cost of building them, & their battery pack that makes them not viable in today's world.

Technology may develop that makes them viable, but other technology will probably make them obsolete, & the same short lived blind alley they were in the 20s.

This of course depends on getting government the hell out of picking winners & rewarding the crony capitalists, by making their technology mandatory. Where is a Don Quixote when you have fool windmills that need destroying.

Special Delivery isn't quite wrong.....
Where is a Don Quixote when you have fool windmills that need destroying.'....
because SD was talking about road stability in general traffic conditions and not in self praising one's ability to drive a car in one direction, in a straight line, without opposing forces impacting on my vehicle....but as usual you always have some fart wanting to big note himself on some past achievement by rearranging the argument to suit his limited point of view.
My perception is that when a person makes a statement based on self delusion nothing that person says can be given the benefit of doubt.
Gravity is a fact of life and whatever wishful technology one may desire that fact is not going to change reeel soon.
You may wish to consider changing your name from Hasbeen to Nevvawas

The last resort of those with no knowledge & no answer is abuse.

How typically Green. Are you a member, or just a fellow traveller?

Before I even think about buying an electric car there are about a thousand things that need fixing.
I will not be the source of funding for someones pipe-dream.
If you 'know' you have a good idea then find the funds or investors and go ahead. I want to see the end product as true value for money and not some marketing scam.
When Henry Ford started production of the Model 'T' motor car he came up with the 'best' price for the car. It sold well.
Not long after he actually 'dropped' the price of the car and set up a scheme whereby his workers could afford to buy one as well.
So before I even think about buying an electric car, I want to see, A; I can travel the same distances I do now with petrol/diesel cars. B; I can 'refuel' at around the same time I do now. And C; Most importantly I don't pay any more than I do now for a family car like a Falcon or a Commodore.
One final point, I don't want to be paying a fortune to replace the batteries after seven or eight years. I was recently offered a 2010 Toyota Hybrid, for NOTHING. The car was like new. Because the batteries were several thousand dollars, no one wanted it. (for nothing) It ended up at the crushers. That's disgusting. I would give someone a good hiding if they dare suggest that that is the way of the future, to recycle. That's not recycling that's wasteful and irresponsible. I can't stand seeing something like new just get tossed in the scrap. If that's where we're headed, she'll be right I'll stick to my current cars. They'll probably outlive me anyway.

Poor Hasbeen....trying to label, in order to justify a point of view or to render irrelevance.
Pathetic....you missed a good opportunity to say nothing, but given your obvious irrelevance in the scheme of things you thought it was worth one more shot lest be viewed a pseudo magnifico.
Congratulations, as is often said ' argue with a fool and you will always lose'....guess that means you win.