Our Climate Change Group is passionate about the actions that individuals can take, big or small, that helps to care for the planet. One of these actions is sharing stories and finding reliable sources of information that are balanced and easy to understand. In today's story, the group is sharing information on electric vehicles.
We now see many electric vehicles on our roads whereas even a year ago they were uncommon. Most of the major manufacturers have launched, or about to launch, their electric vehicles. And some have announced an end date to the manufacture of petrol-powered cars. So our next car could well be an electric vehicle.
Operating costs for electric cars appear to be lower than for petrol-powered cars but the up-front cost is often a lot higher right now. Only a handful of cars are around the $40,000 mark but their number is increasing.
Several groups of councils in Adelaide have been working on measures to address climate change and have produced a series of videos aiming to help us make the transition away from fossil fuels. One such video is on Electric vehicles. It’s an hour and a half in length and covers lots of the issues that need to be considered. It can be watched on City of Marion's Sustainable Home's Webinars page.
There are many resources aimed at choosing electric vehicles: SA Motor (the RAA magazine) has regular reviews as does its Victorian equivalent. Plus independent news and reviews sites such as evcentral.
Charging your electric vehicle is definitely one significant issue for electric vehicles. For a car used mainly around the urban areas and less than 250 kilometres a week, charging at home is a real possibility. But for longer trips or for those unable to charge at home, the availability of charging stations is vital.
Fortunately, charging stations are appearing around South Australia. The State Government has contracted the RAA to install a network of stations: over 530 chargers across 140 electric vehicle charging stations in over 50 rural, regional and metropolitan service locations throughout South Australia. Once the rollout is complete in 2024, 75% of chargers will be in regional SA and 98% of them will be less than 200km apart. The RAA has some excellent reference material accessible via the Electric Vehicle Hub on their website, including information on the RAA charging network and charging at home.
The Chargefox app can also be used to find charging stations; more charging stations built over the next few years by other parties.
For longer trips, the A Better Route Planner website is excellent. Enter start and finish locations anywhere in Australia and the site will construct a detailed route map for your model of electric vehicle with possible stops every two hours or so and estimates on the time to recharge your vehicle at each stop.
If you want to chat about this topic, contact the COTA Climate Change Group via reception on 08 8232 0422.