With the take-up of electric vehicles across Australia commercial market considered "pretty modest" so far, those supporting an EV garbage truck trial in Shepparton believe its important to start chipping away towards a transition.
The advantage of EVs is they’ll get cleaner over time. If you bought one of those Nissan Leafs in 2012, you would have charged it using quite a lot of coal generated electricity. That same car today would use probably half coal and half solar. As coal continues to exit the grid and we build out more solar, emissions from EVs already on the road will keep dropping.
If you buy a diesel today, it’s still going to be burning diesel in 2040.
It’s also more efficient. You lose somewhere around 20 - 30% of the fuel-energy in a combustion engine, but about half that for an electric, since the generator can always run at its most efficient without ramping up and down much, and you don’t waste as much energy from the fuel running the plant.
The advantage of EVs is they’ll get cleaner over time. If you bought one of those Nissan Leafs in 2012, you would have charged it using quite a lot of coal generated electricity. That same car today would use probably half coal and half solar. As coal continues to exit the grid and we build out more solar, emissions from EVs already on the road will keep dropping.
If you buy a diesel today, it’s still going to be burning diesel in 2040.
It’s also more efficient. You lose somewhere around 20 - 30% of the fuel-energy in a combustion engine, but about half that for an electric, since the generator can always run at its most efficient without ramping up and down much, and you don’t waste as much energy from the fuel running the plant.