Aussie $

[DVR]

How many of you guys are having your EV plans pushed back further and further by the state of the aussie dollar?

I've gone from " Yep! absolutly going to do an EV this year" to "If the dollar gets much worse, I'll have to wait and see how things pan out."

My planned Lithium pack is looking to jump from about $11K (August) to probably somewhere near $15K

With the world market in it's current downward spiral I think I might be better of getting rid of debt by putting the money on my mortgage.
What do you guys think?

[tdean]

I like the idea of spending the $4K on your mortgage, in fact I'd be paying the full 11K on my mortgage if I was in the same position.

This world financial crisis is real, so getting rid of liabilities is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Unless your EV is large enough to live in, I'd put it on hold for a little while, but its your call not mine.

regards,

[drowe67]

My $0.02 worth from what I have read and understand. To summarise below, sit tight and wait for the AUD to stabilise.

Short term fluctuations in the share markets (and hence our currency) are driven be fear and greed. Currently we are in fear mode. Big time. People from other countries (e.g Japan) are selling up AUD based shares. Therefore lots of AUD are being converted to "safer" currencies like the Yen, leading to an oversupply of AUD.

The value of the USD also appears to have gone up due to short supply. The supply of USD has been reduced due to bad loans and banks ceasing lending. USD is still the principle world currency so demand exceeds supply.

Long term the AU share market (and hence the AUD) is driven by profits, good companies & good economies. Of which Australia is one of the better places to invest.

So I would wait a little for the long term trends to overtake the short term, fear driven market. Give a slowing commodity boom I doubt the AUD will reach it's previous heights of near parity, but hopefully it will creep up a bit from where it is today.

If the AUD stays low then fuel will stay high, e.g. even at USD$80 per barrel oil i.e. still AUD$120 barrel. So still plenty of motivation for EVs, and a low AUD will make local manufacture of components quite attractive.

Maybe we can also get creative in coming up ways for low cost EVs?

Hmmm, I wonder what falling commodity prices will do to lead and hence lead-acid battery prices?

I would also agree that paying down debt is a good move, in any economic situation.

Cheers,

David

[DVR]

Thanks for the comments guys.
You both confirmed what I've been thinking for a couple of week now.

[Richo]

The big ticket item is the batteries.
So I'm still converting but waiting to buy the batts later.