Back from uk

[Goombi]

Hi,
Most interesting and no wander Prime Minister Gordon Brown has awarded EV users with a 1000pound in cash reduced rego- no fee to enter London and no toll fees on main roads. After writing to Kevin about it I had a reply from the office boy representing energy.. which made absolutely no sense and short of saying how are we going to collect the money from fuel if we have so many EV cars. The reduction of carbon phylosophy is all but forgoten--- and political bull.. I urge all EV converters in process of finishing, to hurry up and get the EV on the road to show the Gov who matters

Cheers

[acmotor]

London is quite forward thinking for an old city.
Years ahead of Oz in many ways.
They have been through plagues and fires and wars and maybe they see the future better than us ?

Is it that we can't or won't think for ourselves about the future ?
We are just an outpost of Detroit and Tokyo.

The last hummer or landcruiser to be sold in the world will probably be sold in Melbourne, no Sydney. I've got it Canberra !

Yes, back to the conversions everyone ...

[Goombi]

Road maintenance and new road building come from car registraions
not from fuel exise or plus GST...

[acmotor]

Yes, I wondered about that.
Is it better or worse than a fuel based user pays system ?

Are you saying there is not fuel excise ?

[hyper24]

The gov is happy to give you 2 grand back for converting to LPG, but he will give you nothing for converting to electric, what bull!!

That makes me mad, and only proves the point that they want more people on LPG so they can reap the benefits of the full tax on LPG once its in full force in 2012 I think it is.
The 2 grand you get back you'll easily pay back in taxes once they jack it up on LPG.

[Goombi]

All of you are absolutely correct Nissan and Renault is opening EV production so is metsubishi Bmw and Mini..GMH-US is going to create an american EV monster volta?? and the Big cars are going to be sitting in holding yards and possibly sold to Arab sheiks GMH lost 15 BillUS$ in 3 month ford is also bleeding Mitsubishi and Nissan are the only prospectors in right direction. I intended to import 1000 chinese Cars the merc Smart Look the gov would not register them without crash test although they are available and selling in Europe and England -Mexico and USA and other se asian countriesSo I pulled out. Hear what happend to the Indian EV car? in South Australia? Not sure if all 50 EV's were crushed by now.
This is quite a MISELABLE SITUTION and as in my previous article My gov. has no desire to import any EV cars no matter what. and also making it harder for EV to get registered... Booo

[acmotor]

hyper,
Rebates are one of me pet issues. Not that a rebate of $2,000 is all that much on a conversion or makes people decide to convert. It is just a case of putting your money where your mouth is. (but then signing Kyoto was just political as we know and PG has been told to be quite on the environment)

[fallingbear]

there is mostly no such thing as a "rebate", as with water tanks, and or lpg!!
all this does is add the rebate onto the actual price of the unit.
it ends up a freebie for the lpg installers, and tank manufacturers,
eg, a fair and reasonable cost to put lpg in, is approx $1600>$2000, with rebate it ends up costing $2900>$3600,, no actul rebate at all.
it is the same with water tanks, and the so called solar rebate,
the manufacturers just add it on to the real bill.
cheers
fbear

[acmotor]

So cynical !
Probably true though.
I'm going back to me conversion.

[markrmarkr]

You often here quotes from Chomsky which "prove" a conspiracy theory. Problem is, the people making these quotes haven't actually read Chomsky.   Get your head around it people: THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY. Just as there is no collusion by fuel retailers and oil companies to jack up the prices. There is no need for conspiracies and collusion. It happens naturally. It's called business. Oil companies are in business to make money. And they do it by increasing profits. sure they have competitors, but they all know how it works. A price war is bad for everybody (in the business).   High prices are good for everybody (in the business).

The same is true for car manufacturers. They are in it to make money. They make money by selling cars. Not by giving people what they want.   What people want is something you mold so that you can sell cars. You mold it by creating expectations you can satisfy.   Expectations like: Speed, performance, luxury, prestige, etc.   You don't make money by selling cheap economical cars - just ask Kia.   The more features you can sell the bigger your bottom line.   Think about it this way and it becomes clearer why Electric is bad. Electric is simple and cheap.   Things don't break down or need maintenance. There is no need to engineer around your mistakes.

I'll say it again - THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY. But which car can you make money on; something cheap and electric or something complicated like the Prius?


Enough doom and gloom. If Toyota is like Microsoft then what we need is Open Source cars, and this is where AEVA comes in.   Keep up the good work!

[acmotor]

Nicely put.   

I for one have never called it conspiracy, just vested interest and a load of lame excuses to protect that business.

Don't be fooled though. There are plenty of the big players scratching each other's back for their common good. They call it 'just good business'.

Do recall that Toyota started off making small, cheap and nasty cars. So it can't be all that bad for business if you look at where they are now. (some will say that there are models in the range that are still as above !)   

The shame is that business will not protect our environment or, as you say, give us the products WE want. We need a little governing here.

California tried once. Time to go again.

Go conversion !

[markrmarkr]

True enough.   Badge-engineering in particular has always bothered me.   That and cross ownership.

I agree about the government stepping in, but I can't see it happening; not when they are giving massive incentives to Toyota to setup for that hybrid in Victoria.   I was hopeful that the Rudd government would do more. But it doesn't look like they have much more in them. Can you believe they put a cap on people putting solar PV systems on their roofs because the "scheme was overheating" - PG? WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO PETER GARETT???????   What hope is there when a stanch man like him can be turned 180 degrees in the blink of an eye?   Did someone take his kids hostage or something?

On a brighter note - I googled "open source electric car" and was surprised how much came up. But it's no where near ready for the mainstream yet. There is an open source AC controller which is getting close though. And that's encouraging.

[fallingbear]

when in the next few years we have bucketloads of ev,s here and o/s, they will most certinly up the price on elec for charging them??
they [the gov] will still have a hard time getting back the revenue, they now get from ice,zz and petrol, etc??
so it does worry me a tadd, exactly what they will come up with too regain this revenue?
it will be fabbo when we get decent ev,s,,especially if they cost around 20>30k?
markr markr,, re rebates>>>>>>it does not surprise me them putting the brakes on solar rebates? it was just making the solar panels more expensive to buy,
true,!! by the exact amount the rebate is!!!
same as the lpg rebate,,
SHAME SHAME SHAME,,,,,PETER GARRETT.. still always knew he was a flake,,by the way he danced on stage??
cheers
fbear

[woody]

Possibly they'll go the NZ route and charge extra on your rego based on distance travelled (see kiwiev.com).

What a great political move it would be to say they'll never charge road tax on EVs. It costs them nothing on paper, but think of the political mileage!

[Goombi]

My apologies if this dont fit here, but how tragic


This is factual !!!! Or is it?

36
have been accused of spousal abuse

7
have been arrested for fraud

19
have been accused of writing bad cheques


117
have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses


3
have done time for assault

71,
repeat
71   
cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14
have been arrested on drug-related charges

8
have been arrested for shoplifting

21
currently
are defendants in lawsuits and

84
have been arrested for drunk driving
in
the last year

Neither,
it's the 535 members of the AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT IN CANBERRA


The same group of so and so's that crank out hundreds of new laws each year,designed to keep the rest of us in line.