General Discussions

[Thryleon]

For all that electric cars might be the future, they are definitely not for today.
[1] The do not have the performance of a petrol car, although they have improved their acceleration.
[2] They do not have the range of a petrol car. They are only reasonable for use in a city and then only for short to medium drives. Sitting in traffic for hours chews up battery life.
[3] They are far too expensive for the average traveller.
[4] Their repairs are going to be extra expensive for the foreseeable future.
[5] The recharging system is simply inadequate, and at least 2 generations of technology away from being within an order of magnitude of recharging capability of a petrol car.
[6] The infrastructure to support electric cars doesn't exist and is a long ay from being even remotely accessible for mass usage.
[7] Any car parts are far too expensive: a car made from spare parts of close to five times the cost of an ordinary car. But the parts for an electric car are significantly worse. Not only are they hard to come by and ridiculously expensive, but most mechanics and not trained in their usage.
[8] The technology behind the batteries leaves much to be desired. Honestly, the batteries have improved by maybe 2 orders of magnitude, but they are still a long way from being a finished product. people use them because they are the best presently available, not because they are really very good. They will have to improve by at least 2 further degrees of magnitude before they are reliable and safe for the long term.
[9] Electric cars, especially the batteries, use rare earths and Lithium, for which the world has not yet come to terms with. The expensive metals tend not to be reused, nor do they tend to be easily reusable. It means that the rare earths, in particular, are always in short supply. It also causes states like China to get access to these materials whatever the cost, mostly from African nations. It makes the way the Americans and British behaved in the 1st petrol boom look positively pedestrian.

I am really sad to write this, because I'm a huge supporter of high tech. But we have raced into electric cars before the product was fit for mass usage. They won't be ready for mass usage in my lifetime.
I understand that people want to reduce greenhouse gases; it is a good idea to do so. But this technology is not ready.

Sadly, no other technology seems to be ready either. As a SF fanatic, I wanted a Hydrogen powered car when I was a kid, and I wanted one in the 1970's, when oil supplies were no longer as reliable as they once were. The idea of having only water vapour as an exhaust appealed to be greatly.
However, there appears to have been very little research into making a decent Hydrogen powered car. The chemistry is well understood: NASA has been using variations on it for over 70 years. But it is still very much a technology in its infancy.
I also have issues about the way some companies appear to be making their Hydrogen. Converting fossil fuels into Hydrogen may be cheap, but where does the carbon go? The process that I've read about is not without major drawbacks.

Solar panels are a lot cheaper and more efficient these days, but they still don't get better than 15% efficiency (usually a LOT less) and the sun shines directly on them for only a few hours per day. Even so, I had solar cells on my roof when I lived in Bendigo. I would also have invested in a battery if I hadn't moved. It makes sense.
Using solar power on a scale to supply a rapidly growing technological society isn't going to work: human energy usage is increasing exponentially, while supply is not.
I like the idea of Solar Power Satellites, and Australia is placed in the perfect spot to be the main ground station for such a system. Like a dam, all the costs are in the original construction. After that there is minimal maintenance. It does require a space-based industry, but the upsides are phenomenal.
Another way of generating huge gobs of power is something the Japanese are trialling: using the difference in temperature between deep seas water and close to surface water to generate electricity. It is a guaranteed no-polluting system: the effluent is sea water at a middle of the range temperature. This water could be used to farm fish, a much more practical way of getting fish than our present hunting method is. Over-fishing has led to some fish becoming close to extinction: farming the fish you want is a much more sustainable method of production. By letting water of different temperature exist at different spots would allow zones where fish could farmed easily, with the nutrients coming from the ocean floor, where they are presently unavailable for life on this planet.

I have always been a fan of the nuclear option, but fission power is merely a stop-gap until fusion power comes along. Fusion Reactors now make a little more energy than they require, but this technology is probably a century away from being ready for industrial use.

Sorry to rant, but the anti-tech messages I see around today really irritated me more than usual.  Probably because of lack of sleep.

I dont disagree with much here, but I've seen acceleration on these that are miles ahead of any other car.