FOSS to electric cars: not such a big leap

Sam Varghese
Friday, 01 February 2008 08:12

Opinion and Analysis

On the public front, Keech will be making a presentation at the Sustainable Living Festival which will be held at Melbourne's Federation Square on February 17. His topic will be the consumer perspective on buying an electric car.

He says the biggest challenge that manufacturers of electric vehicles face is the battery. "In the early days of the automobile, there were many electric vehicles so electric motors are mature in terms of development," he said.

Asked about the EV1, the electric car that failed to gain traction in the United States in the early 1990s, he said it was a question of bad timing.

Oil prices went up during the Gulf war (that was waged to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), but then remained quite low for most of the rest of the decade; hence there was no real economic incentive to mass produce electric vehicles.

"The experience of EV1 has put a lot of people off. The technology is there," he said.

He said there was a general inertia among the public when it came to the issue of peak oil.

"People aren't interested in paying 10 per cent more for a car that gives them much more in terms of both sustainability and efficiency.

"Australia has a good supply of electricity and prices do not fluctuate that much; we can also pick and choose our suppliers now. As you know, nothing could be more unstable than petrol prices."

He likened his decision to switch from petrol-powered vehicles to a tradeoff for security - something which security guru Bruce Schneier dealt with at length during his keynote at the formal opening of the LCA.

"You spend $50,000 on a car that can only do 120 kilometres between charges - that's a risk I'm willing to take. I don';t want to be stuck when people are queueing up for petrol during the next oil shock."