Recently the Australian government has given the okay for an electric car designed, and manufactured in Japan by Mitsubishi to be introduced to Aussie roads after it passed 83 safety requirements.
The car can apparently travel 160km at speeds of up to 130km/h at full pelt.
The introduction of this car is in response to the increasing problem of smog in Australia cities, according to Transport Minister Anthony Albanese:
“Given that 85 per cent of Australians drive less than 100km a day, this vehicle would suit the lifestyles of most in our community…”
So obviously this vehicle will be targeted at the people living in the urban sprawls of Australia, and not at people who live in the country. Although there is no infrastructure for electric cars to charge just yet the vehicle can be plugged into household supplies.
The government has stated that this particular car is purely a commercial venture by Mitsubishi and has no extra government incentives.
Production for this car will be in full swing in Japan as early as June for their domestic market. But don’t be rushing out to your Mitsubishi dealer just yet approval to sell the car in Australia has yet to be Okayed.
I find the prospect of a clean urban center quite appealing with little electric cars running around. But on a serious note the idea of an electric car is badly flawed as you’re not dumping CO2 into the atmosphere; but you’re putting more demand on power plants so in the end you still contribute to the problem of climate change anyway.
The problem is worse in Australia’s case as most of our power comes from good old fashioned Coal so instead of pumping out petrol fumes, we’re getting the power plants to burn more coal.
I’m not sure what sort of batteries Mitsubishi plan to use in their car but if they end up using lead acid batteries it’ll end up being worse for the environment than a normal 4 banger.
I’ll bet the greenies will be all over this car driving around in their electric cars, feeling guilt free because they’re not polluting while driving around. The old expression ‘Out of Sight, out of Mind’ truely applies here with people feeling guilt free in their electric cars without noticing the fact that we’ve got coal power plants working harder and burning more coal.
So until we get a decent number of nuclear power plants to replace the coal ones, and battery life of the car will last more than one charge or fuel cell cars become mainstream.
I’ll stick with my petrol fueled 2001 Holden Vectra thanks.
Sourced From News.com.au
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