In my world, this is simply another hostile subject, along the line (and in the same basket exactly) as Gillards cash for clunkers.
I haven't bothered reading the article (and won't), my ears are shut to elitist propaganda.

It also joins the longline of negative innovations designed to strip the poor of their last vestiges of technological comforts, such as electricity and heaters in the winter, air conditioners in the summer, now reserved for the wealthy.

Along with the liberals tax cuts on offer, also guaranteeing to defund further, any public good, and demolish egalitarianism and community bond that still exists in small pockets in Australia.

Electric skateboards as toys for children, yes: Electric cars as toys for wealthy elitests, no, not if any move in that direction mandates me into their wealth stripping technology by force!

There are a few things that need to be taken into account. A major shortfall of petrol tax will have to be made up by some other tax on the feckless motorist. To cope with the increase in electricity usage, a new power station of the size of the now defunct Hazelwood power station will need to be built.
Another factor that needs to be considered is the possibility that fuel cells powered either from Hydrogen or ammonia will probably have replaced the need for large batteries, so that any infrastructure built to replace the internal combustion engine might also become obsolete in a short period.
Watch this space for future developments.

David

Is Labour serious about electric vehicles? Well, it would seem, they are. And given the nationwide rollout of fast charge charging station sure to be adopted by folk tired of being the captive market of the oil oligarchs! The elephant in the room is can we charge all these electric vehicles trucks buses utes and four-wheel drives, plying our highways and byways, once they come down in price and are made affordable for joe average, here's the conundrum?

If half the national fleet is all electric in a decade or two and all our coal-fired power stations are retired by then!? How do we charge cars as they go further and further from our cities?

And given the extra demand, this would place on the grid! How do we keep the lights on and the commuter traffic, trams, trucks, buses and electrically power rapid rail all moving? Without experiencing blackouts when the sun isn't shining the wind isn't blowing and years and years of endless enduring drought the like of which we've never ever seen before empty the reservoirs and the pumped hydro that relies exclusively on them!

Well, it demands a serious change in thinking and forward planning. And the rollout of the graphene highway to effectively treble the, available to the end user, megawatts of delivered power without increasing current capacity! And more like opening a valve to increase flow, if you want an analogy that almost anyone can understand?
TBC. Alan B.

Presumably everybody will have secure full time jobs by 2030 and will live in a detached house with a big solar roof and off-street parking. The cheapest practical EV in Australia costs about $45k on road so the low paid won't be getting them anytime soon. They will drive old bangers costing under $10k. Fuel costs not too far away over $2/L will chew up a lot of their income.

If 50% EVs requires 15% more national electricity that will have to be immune to weather. A fanciful idea is that plugged in EVs will help power aluminium smelters late at night when the wind dies down. Even Tesla ridiculed the vehicle-to-grid idea. As I said yesterday on OLO re fast trains consider the possibility that we'll be grounded.

If course they are not serious. It's just another 'by 2030' lark. The magic number is 2030, so far into the future, in political terms, that they can say what they like. When nothing happens in 2030, it will be 2050 or some other magic number. And the dopey public, if they are even listening, will be none the wiser. If voters were the slightest bit intelligent, politicians -all if them - wouldn't be getting away with the crap they are talking. We cannot rely on politicians to fix the problems they caused in the first place.

Oh god, another planner banging on about public transport. The only good thing about this article is it did not mention push bikes.

The last figures I saw suggested that public transport consumes about 17% more fuel per passenger mile than private, & costs 22% more. What a great idea for CO2 reduction is increasing public transport.

Then we have the fact that it only services the travel needs of about 10% of the population. How many more busses & trains would it really take, & at what cost to service the travel needs of even most people.

Then the stupidity of electric cars. The break even point in life time CO2 emission for electric cars against ICE cars comes out at about 110,000 kilometres. For most of us, that would be about battery replacement, or more likely scrap the thing time. Few will be stupid enough to fit $8000 in new batteries to a car worth $6000 with them fitted.

Wouldn't it be lovely if some planners could even once talk some sense. We might even get some sense in government policy if their advisers had some clue about future requirements.