From Hilltops Council – John Piper

I was reading an article the other day about electric cars. The story was of a couple, who owned an electric car, a Tesla, and they wanted to do a road trip, travel down the east coast to Melbourne, Adelaide then up into the Flinders Ranges, travelling on some dirt roads.

The couple asked the editor of the motor magazine ‘if their Tesla electric car would be suitable vehicle for their trip’.

He pointed out there would be distances beyond the capability of their electric car and limited charging stations along the way, especially in outback and isolated areas.

Their Tesla didn’t come with a spare tyre and also had different size tyres front to rear. The couple decided to go with a Subaru 4wd for their road trip. Luckily they did, as they did have a puncture on an outback dirt road and did need to use the spare tyre.

So it made me think, are electric cars a practical idea for a country as big and vast as Australia. Maybe the electric car is suitable for city/urban living, but what about living in rural areas, where long distance travel is the norm and charging stations are few and far between?

And recharging them –

Imagine, we are relying on wind and solar power giving us most of our electricity, we all arrive home from work about the same time, in our electric car, it’s a very hot day, we turn on the air-con to cool down the house, plug in our electric car to recharge, all at the same time, inevitably causing a massive drain on our power grids. Do you think we won’t have black outs? - Will we need some sort of alternative back up system?

So my question is, how practical is the electric car for a country as big as ours?

Councillor John Piper