Long Weekend - Where are all the country car chargers ?

Do you kow how many electric car chargers are between Perth and ALbany?

Do you know what it costs to fill up an electric vehicle using a fast charger in a country town?

Do you even know what it costs to run your house each night with electricity?

Do you know how far a battery of electrons will take the average electric car?

Most people dont, but they are suspicious it’s not far enough.

While most people think EVs are good, why are so few buying them?

You may have notices that the federal government has recently gone into overdrive to sell the merits of electric cars, trotting out thoisands of dollars of potential savings (over 5 years).

With all the talk of the cost savings I thought I would take a quick look at the numbers.

The cheapest electric cars on the market start at around $40,000 on road which is about $20,000 more than the cheapest petrol car. 

As for Utes there is only one on the market which is the eT60 LDV up for $93,000 double the LDV T60 diesel (which is a fine vehicle for all the anti Chinese ute commentators - by the way Layland goes back to 1896 named after the town of Layland in the UK making unreliable post war brands like Jaguar, Rover, Mini and Range Rover. They also built cars in Australia from 1947 to 81 including the legendrty P76 not to mention the 2 door muscle version no one recalls the Force P7 (check it out). The last car they assembled here was the Mini Moke where we made 26,000 between 1966-81).

Thanks to the unions British layland went broke and was sold to the Russians then the Chinese in 2010 now they are part of Shanghai Motors the biggest Chinese manufacturer SAIC who now make 5 million cars a year including ones under license for GM and VW. They know how to make cars, dont dismiss them!

But back to my story on EVs

As for whats coming on non chinese made electric utes you can look forward to the Toyota EPU · GMC Hummer EV · Rivian R1T · Ford F-150 Electric · BYD ute · Kia electric ute and GWM Cannon EV but none will come in under $100,000.

When comparing electric vs combustion, the big question over and above the fuel savings is how long to they last.

From what I can find both can do around 300,000 km before the engine goes or the battery needs replacing.

Batteries decline at 2% a year and cost around the same as a motor to replace at around $15,000 installed out of a box.  Sure combustion engines and gear boxes cost more but so does the insurance on e vehicles which sort of averages it out.

Both need energy to run, one in the form of petroleum and the other in the form of electrons which more often than not it comes from a coal or gas power station but I digress.

Let’s assume that you are also not a Level 9 public servant, working on the Governments climate change policy on a salary of $150,000 with an electric vehicle as part of your salary package which includes a home charger.

Nor are you part of the western suburbs elite with a $50,000 roof top solar and battery system that keeps the Tesla powered up for free for your run down to Margarets in time to join the save the whales rally.

Rather you are one of the battling 1.9 million Australians living in a unit with no garage, meaning there is only off street parking leaving you to rely on the local e-plug in at the shopping centre for your electrons should you go electric.

If you believe all the hype from the federal government that electric cars offer huge savings and hock yourself to buy a MG 4 for $40,000, you can look forward to saving money from petrol and engine services, but the battery is still running down to its half life, not to mention the insurance and the fact it still needs to be fuelled with electrons.

As for the cost of a fill, if you have time on your side and don’t include the cost of all the coffees while you wait, you can head off to the slow 22kW public chargers at the local library and wait and wait for it to charge up.

But its not free in fact, unfortunately the price has recently increased from 35c per kWh to 50c as a result of all those expensive wind farms sending the coal fired power stations to the wall.

This rate is about double the residential power tariff rates, which the public servant enjoys, while fast charging at the local shopping centre will cost you 68c kWH about a third of what you pay for a liter of petrol.

As your new eMG4 only has a 60kWh battery capacity and a real-world energy consumption of 20kWh per 100km driven, you are limited to about 300km before it needs to be recharged, that’s Perth to Mount Barker if you start at Armadale.

This is good news for the Mt Barker Bakery.

And when you get there, no its not the 200w rapid charger you read about that the RAC recently installed, that’s at Mount Barker in South Australia, our Mt Barket only has a trickle charger of 15w and you have to ask the council if you want to use it.

If it was indeed a RAC fast charger, at 68c per kWh it will cost $40.80 to charge the MG but it still takes quarter of an hour if there are no ques, to that you can add the cost of your skinny oat milk coffee, weak but extra hot.

Should you have brought a new petrol car for $40,000 and were heading off to Albany for hols, you would not have had to stop in Mount Barker, mind you the Bakery is always good for a 5 min pit stop plus pie.

As for the fuel consumption the average smallish dirty filthy petrol car that Albo wants off the road consumes 1 litre of fuel per 15km in real world environments.

Assuming a $2 a litre petrol price, if you filled up with the same amount as the eMG that is $40.80 worth of fuel, you would be able to drive 306km, all of 6km more than the EV, but at least with a full tank its non stop to Albany.

In effect it costs the same to run a small EV as it does a small car when it comes to the cost of energy, unless that is, you are filling it from your own home battery solar system then it really is free, minus interest and depreciation on your $20,000 renewable power system (except for govt employees who are working on transitioning the state back to the horse and cart era).

So now let’s look at it from a rural and regional perspective.

You are a keen regenerative farmer and after signing up to carbon farming with some dodgy salespeople, you spend your carbon credit income on a $90,000 eLDC and $60,000 on a stand alone solar power batter system to capture the free electrons from the sun.

You are feeling virtuous and good about your efforts to save the planet, minus some niggling concerns about the carbon and environmental costs of these battery’s and solar panels not to mention the metal and plastic in the new car vs just running the old diesel ute forever and sending the child labour in the mines back to school.

You are also concerned about the cost and charging time when you go to Perth.

You agonise about investing another $60,000 in the Perth house? Maybe there is a fast charger you can use in your suburb and the RAC will soon roll out lots of fast chargers on the way to Perth. So you wait.

And wait you will. Why? Because one of the other hidden challenges of owning a e vehicle is the time difference between a fast and slow charger.

For example a average fast charge is 30 minutes, while the wall socket charge time is closer to 10 hours.

As for more charging stations coming in country towns, good luck with that! They are few and far between for a reason.

At $40,000 a pop, they are not cheap, and the petroleum companies are in no big hurry to install them, and neither are local councils who already have local businesses complaining of brown outs, while country drivers are refusing to put themselves in a position when they need them.

Besides whom wants to wait for an hour while the two cars in front of you load up with electrons or worse, the flow of electrons is reduced to a trickle as the power grid can’t handle the drain from all the charge stations across all the country towns.

The problem with EVs is without the range or cheap power they remain a rich people’s virtue signalling toys. 

For the fat cats in the public service they are fully tax deductable when salary packaged up to $89,332 via a novated lease, plus they don’t pay to fuel up when they have access to a free charging station at work.

If EVs are the future, then the government needs to be frank about their pros and cons.

As all I can see are pros for the wealthy and cons for the rest of us.