Electric Vehicle Transition: Sydney conference to plot Australia’s electric vehicle future

Electric Vehicle Transition in Australia conference aims to boost EV future.

The inaugural Electric Vehicle Transition in Australia conference is designed to spread the word about electric vehicles and secure the nation’s EV future.

The conference will be held at Sydney’s University of Technology on August 25 and 27. It will feature EV technology experts and advocates, including Labor’s Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Mark Butler.

The conference aims to ease Australia’s transition to an electric vehicle future and to shed light on current EV policy, market forecasts, infrastructure and technology.

Federal Government should help secure EV future

RenewEconomy and EV resource The Driven will co-host the conference.

Other confirmed speakers include ACT Greens Leader and Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Shane Rattenbury, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Ali Asghar.

It will also feature Powershop CEO Ed McManus and Greensync CEO Phil Blythe. In addition, there will be speakers from the Australian Energy Market Operator and Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

EVs have been slow to catch on in Australia compared to the rest of the world. This is largely because the Federal Government has failed to set either a target or encourage investment in future EV technology.

Unpacking EV fuel costs: Clean, cheap power

According to Queensland energy retailer Ergon, it costs around $4.50 in standard electricity charges to travel 100 km in Australia. This assumes an average price for electricity of $0.25/ kWh and an estimated 18 kWh needed to travel 100 km.

Off-peak charging rates are even cheaper. In a trial in Townsville a Mitsubishi i-MiEV on Tariff 33 clocked up $3.25 in electricity charges to travel the same distance.

Compare this to a standard petrol-fuelled car using 11.1 litres of fuel to travel 100 km. The cost would be $16.65 at $1.50 per litre. Even a high-efficiency diesel vehicle using 5 litres would cost $7.50.

Home charging stations for electric vehicles

Households with solar power systems can save money by charging their car at home.

Owners of solar panels can add a home battery such as a Tesla Powerwall 2 or Enphase. They can then store electricity and charge their EV overnight.

Meanwhile, Tesla boss Elon Musk has hinted at future EV software to target cheap charging tariffs.

Musk was responding to a tweet asking how to know when to charge a vehicle on the cheapest electricity tariff.

He replied that future Tesla vehicles could ship with software that uses geolocation and time-of-use tariff data to charge automatically when electricity is cheapest.

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