How You Can Lock In a Good Price On Petrol for a Whole Week

4 responses to “How You Can Lock In a Good Price On Petrol for a Whole Week”

1. 

   spod12

   December 29, 2020

   We have an EV, we never have to queue to get fuel, pay a stupidly high price per km to travel (an EV costs around a third per km than an ICE) and we don’t have to breathe carcinogenic fumes. Once you own an EV, ICE vehicles make absolutely no sense and you realise just how last century they really are.

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   1. 

      ararat

      January 13, 2021

      Oh, but you do have to breathe in the carcinogenic fumes, because everybody else is using hydrocarbon powered vehicles.

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   2. 

      squish

      January 13, 2021

      We do not have an EV, we have a petrol car. We have done the sums and simply stated an EV will cost us so much more in terms of total cost of ownership. It would cost a ridiculous amount to buy and only save US around $600 per year in fuel/ power costs assuming we don’t have to ever replace the battery. (a tank of petrol lasts us 3 to 4 weeks, and it takes only 3 minutes to ‘recharge’ the tank!) Even considering service costs etc, it would take over 17 years to break even, and by then we would have had to buy at least 2 battery packs at close to the original price of the EV. EV’s are currently ridiculously over priced, so as they come down, an EV will depreciate rapidly. Try selling a used Leaf, or a shitty Tesla in a few more years when the battery is aging.
      There is currently no real battery pack recycling program, so they would end up in landfill. Recycling 3-7% of the lithium is not real.
      OK, so where does the power come from? We would be recharging overnight when the power costs less, so it would most likely come from COAL!!! Tell me that is not making carcinogenic fumes or destroying the environment.
      No – not yet by a long shot – maybe one day but not now, no way.
      Oh, also saw EV’s cueing up for recharge on our summer holiday, and one guy who had to run an extension lead out of his Motel room window to recharge.
      The only time I have seen someone cue for petrol was in the 80’s when the petrol strikes were on. The only time I would ever cue is if they were giving it away!
      We’ll re-assess the situation in 5-10 years time.

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      1. 

         spod12

         January 15, 2021

         The problem in Australia is that EVs cost so much more than they do overseas, many countries, even some developing countries, have incentives to buy them, but not here in Oz, there’s buggerall. To be expected with a fossil fuel sucking liberal government, but still, the states could be doing a great deal more. But prices are coming down, the MG ZS EV is under $44k drive away now, and we can expect sub-$40k EVs in the next year (we bought a Zoe when Renault ran them out for $37k, so didn’t pay anywhere near full price) and sub $30k EVs in 2-3 years. But, early adopters like us do expect our vehicles to depreciate considerably, but not nearly as much as petrol vehicles will once EVs become the majority of vehicle sales – in a few years you won’t be able to give ICE vehicles away in some countries.

         EV battery packs are not ending up in landfill, that’s rubbish, most manufacturers either have or are working on end-of-life reuse/recycling programs for EV packs, but as yet there are very few packs available because they last several hundred thousand kms in most EVs. As for lifespan, even old Leafs, with no thermal management at all, are still running around on their original packs, but pretty much every other EV has much better battery thermal management and can expect 1000+ cycles. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but at one charge a week on average, it’s around 20 years. And batts are getting cheaper constantly, they are already hovering around the US$100/kWh to manufacturers, and that number is expected to halve in the next few years and keep going down as they get simpler and use cheaper materials (cobalt is being eliminated by most manufacturers, for example) and production volumes ramp up. In a few years at most we will have price parity with ICE vehicles and when that happens, that’s the end of ICE vehicles, as has been seen in countries with high incentives like Norway, where EVs are the majority of all new vehicles sold.

         The Australian grid is much cleaner than it used to be, there is pretty much no use case where running an EV from grid power is dirtier than driving a petrol vehicle, and what most people don’t realise is that petrol doesn’t just magically appear, it requires a lot of energy to distil, much of that from gas, so your petrol has a high emissions price tag even before you have burnt it. The emissions from driving petrol or diesel are far higher than specified on the vehicle sticker. Here in Tasmania, we have all hydro and wind and we charge in the middle of the day when we have lots of excess solar, so our EV is pretty much emissions free, and saves literally tonnes of CO2 each year.

         As for queueing for a charge, that’s the fault of a lack of infrastructure, ie governments not making the effort to get charging stations installed. In other countries there are big charging stations with dozens or even close to 100 charging stalls, complete with café and amusements. There’s nothing like that here, Australia is at least 10 years behind a lot of the rest of the world. But, it will all happen in time, just like it has overseas, at least if numpties would stop voting for the LNP. But, the vast majority of EV charging is done at home, no need for waiting for charging stations to free up.

         So, yes, for some people who do regular long distance trips, maybe an EV is a push at the moment, but half the cars in the country never do more than 100km a day and they could all be EVs with no hassle at all.

         If you want to find out the state of play with EVs I recommend you look a lot further afield than LH, check out thedriven and cleantechnica where you might just get your eyes opened a little.

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