All charged up and ready to go, electric vehicles rev up globally
It’s not that they’re the next evolution in automotive technology, nor the fact they’re better for the environment. The main reason tech entrepreneur and investor Simon Hackett loves electric cars is because they’re just so much fun to drive.
For Hackett it all started with a Blade Electron, an electric vehicle conversion built in Victoria based on a small Hyundai Getz. It sparked Hackett’s imagination, and there was no turning back. In 2009 he became the first Australian to buy a Tesla Roadster, and today he’s participating in a project to build electric racecars.
“The thing that changes your perspective on driving electric cars the most is the act of actually driving them, because they’re just better cars to drive,” says Hackett. “The more the community has opportunities to drive them, the more their adoption will accelerate.”
Electric car sales are booming. Over the past 12 months, global sales of plug-in, pure electric cars grew by an impressive 125 per cent. Japan accounted for most of the sales, followed by the US, China, France and then Norway.
In Australia, there are just 1,000 all-electric vehicles on the road, but demand for sparky supercars is growing in line with other countries.
The future of the Australian automotive industry is likely in the technological shift to electric vehicles. What will cars look like in 2050?
The number of electric vehicles registered in Australia has grown by roughly 100 per cent per annum for the last five years, and as the number of vehicles increases, so do the number charge stations.
However, these numbers pale in comparison to more than 172,000 plug-in electric vehicles on the road in the US, 75,000 in Japan, and 38,000 in China. Following this enormous growth in demand, the push is on to roll out extensive charge station infrastructure to ensure these cars can travel on our roads.
There are now more than 200 ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations available in traditional service stations, hotels, council carparks and residential developments.
“The idea with electric vehicles is that parking is synonymous with charging; meaning we are targeting locations where drivers are known to park for a period of time,” says ChargePoint’s National Manager, James Brown. “This will give electric vehicle owners the ability to extend out their battery range, while going about their daily routines.”
ChargePoint offers two types of charging station; Level 2, which delivers 7 kW of electricity and is designed to fully recharge car batteries over a matter of hours, and Level 3 which delivers 25 kW and are capable of recharging a car battery from 30 to 80 percent in approximately 25 minutes.
Around the world there are a number of different approaches being trialed, from battery swap stations, to refuelling technologies to technologies akin to ChargePoint, which make it easy to rapidly recharge. GE, for example, has two charging solutions; the WattStation, which offers a rapid recharge, and the DuraStation, where vehicles can be plugged in for extended periods.
Regardless of which refuelling solution wins out, Hackett believes electric cars will ultimately become a standard offering in Australia.
“We are right at the cusp of a roughly 10-year period in which I believe we'll go from electric vehicles being unusual to electric vehicles being a routine component of the vehicle fleet,” Hackett says. “It’s not a question of total displacement – the car dealer will simply move from a question of ‘Petrol or Diesel’' to ‘Petrol, Diesel or Electric?’’’
http://gereports.com.au/post/14-05-2014/all-charged-up-and-ready-to-go-electric-vehicles-rev-up-globally?utm_source=outbrain_organic
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