Carlton Supporters Club

I see Landcruiser 70s are going all electric with some 200 on order for use in and around mining sites across Australia.

It won't be long before this filters down into surrounding towns as mining companies start to pop up charging points here and there.

This is sure to cause some gnashing of teeth around the traps!

I thought the 70s going all electric was a new development, I think we talked about Toorak tractors in the past.

BHP actually went lighter vehicles like Hilux that would pass safety rating tests, they also pulled bullbars off their vehicles because they were a safety hazard rather than a help.
These Landcruiser conversions must be to drive around Mining sites only I would have thought.....
After being scrapped in the USA after poor sales the Landcruiser is making a return with a turbo powered hybrid which is set to be released in 2024 so I presume that model would also make its way down to Aus which should please Landcruiser fanatics.

China have a problem with owners dumping EV vehicles now the Govt have dropped subsidies etc...
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-china-ev-graveyards/

It's interesting @ElwoodBlues1 I've mates in the UK who are furious about the changes there as well.

They invested heavily in EVs as company vehicles on the basis they would be recharging at no cost for life using the M25 supercharge stops, but then the definitions of "for life" and "recharging" seems to have changed.

Now they only can get access to low power slow recharging for free, which means sitting in a freeway hub for 2hrs while your Tesla recharges at a snails pace. If you want to use the superchargers and be gone in 15mins they have to now pay for something they previously got for free! As company vehicles it's obviously untenable to slow charge, and in the meantime all the holiday makers and pensioners fill up the free spots so they have no choice but to pay!

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.

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