Why buy an Electric Car?
Australia is quickly catching up with the rest of the world in embracing electric vehicles, with EV sales increasing 10% in the last year and the market for EVs ever growing. Did you know there are over 2,000,000 Plug in electric vehicles currently in use around the world?
So why should you buy an Electric Vehicle?
Cheaper to run
Owners of an EV have the advantage of much lower running costs. The cost of electricity to charge an EV works out about a third as much per kilometre as buying petrol for the same type of vehicle.
Cheaper to service and maintain
A battery electric vehicle has a lot less moving parts than a conventional petrol/diesel car. There is relatively little servicing. An EV has no expensive conventional transmission, no exhaust, no starter motor, no fuel injection or carburettor.
In reality you just need maintain the brakes, tyres and suspension and that’s about all.
Batteries degrade, and reduced driving distance will occur over time. Manufacturers warrant the battery over 8 years with a guaranteed charge level capacity. Tesla believes their batteries will be viable for 20 years, and could provide up to 10 years in the car, and then 10 years powering a house. Li-Ion batteries are recyclable, and the Lithium can be reclaimed and reused in new batteries.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) use a smaller capacity petrol engine that offers reduced maintenance costs. PHEV’s are also often only driven in EV mode for shorter trips around town, significantly reducing the wear and tear on the petrol engine.
Better for the environment
Less pollution: By choosing to drive an EV you are helping to reduce harmful air pollution from exhaust emissions. An full EV has zero exhaust emissions.
Renewable energy: If you use renewable energy to recharge your EV, you can reduce your greenhouse gas emissions even further. In the future it should eventually be possible to recharge your EV from your solar PV system during the day instead of from the grid.
Until that happens you can still put your solar PV output into the grid and then take that energy back out of the grid to charge your car.
Another idea is to purchase GreenPower from your electricity retailer. Then, even if you recharge your EV from the grid, your greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.
