Infrastructure woe for electric cars

By Mark Hinchliffe
The Courier-Mail
07 August 2009

There are several options for recharging electric vehicles such as mains trickle charging, quick-charging stations and even battery replacement facilities but which solution will be popular?

The biggest hurdle to electric vehicles is infrastructure.

Electric vehicles are hampered by limited range and the slow process of recharging their batteries. But rather than wait for the infrastructure to be established, car companies are forging ahead with plans for electric vehicles.

In the next couple of years our market will see electric vehicles from Mitsubishi, Nissan and GM.

So what do motorists do about charging them? Most batteries take about eight hours to fully charge on 240-volt mains power and have a range below 200km, which means they need recharging almost daily. Even quick-charging high-voltage solutions can take up to 30 minutes to get a battery up to 80 per cent charge.

Motorists are used to fuelling the tank on their internal combustion engines at a convenient service station in about five minutes, so having to stop for half an hour would be a huge impost.

Nissan, whose Leaf electric hatchback goes into production next year and will arrive here in 2011, believes motorists will have to change the way they live with their vehicle, but can still enjoy convenient motoring.

There are several options for recharging electric vehicles such as mains trickle charging, quick-charging stations and even battery replacement facilities. Which solution emerges as the most popular will be much like the 1980s battle between VHS and Beta technology or the current DVD versus Blue-Ray.

Nissan global zero emissions business unit general manager Hideaki Watanabe says he doesn't care which option wins, but believes all could succeed and live together. "It will be a race between all the options. There could be some other new solutions for infrastructure as well," he said. "It may depend on which one becomes mature first and which one the customers want."

He sees a future with electric vehicles as a blend of these solutions with mains trickle charging at home overnight when electricity charges are low and top-up quick charges in public places such as shopping centre carparks throughout the day. "Some retailers are showing an interest in EV," he said.

"Malls are interested in providing the infrastructure to keep people shopping longer. Maybe shops will offer discounts on charging if they buy products from them like they do now with parking charges."

However, he said the industry also needed government help with establishing infrastructure as well as providing incentives for motorists to go electric such as reduced stamp duty and registration, priority lanes, parking concessions and education of the public. "You have to give some benefits to people to switch to electricity," he said.

He isn't concerned with the criticism that vehicles powered by electricity from coal-fired power stations — such as in Australia — only shift the emissions from the street to the factory. "I don't care about how the electricity is generated," he said. "It's like the chicken and the egg. Do we wait for environmentally friendly electricity generation infrastructure or not?

"I believe we have a responsibility to introduce a zero emission vehicle now. If we introduced the zero emission vehicle then people and governments and the private sector will do their part to provide zero-emission power."

Comments on this story

Displaying 2 of 2 comments

Welcome to the world should not be so quickly and abandon the electric car not only institutes working on power for these cars, but also private groups that they may boast niezÅ‚ymi achievements in research on power for these cars. The project, which is already at the end he got his name recently - Leonardo da Vinci, in this research project lies in the device, which should give the cars an incredible range, the system does not need the plug-in houses and urban infrastructure. Then electric cars will not need expensive batteries, which inhibit the initiation of world production. This will be an incredible shock to have a car to purchase an amazing range do not need government support for these cars, the world must unite in the development of these cars.
grupa jurgena of Germany Posted on 31 October 2009 8:45am
Why isn't it possible to connect lamp posts to a charging meter, to charge electric cars. They are already installed, are placed in the best position next to the road and cover the whole of Australia.
Robert Tyrell of Surfers Paradise Posted on 08 August 2009 12:28pm

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