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Today I received an email from the NSW Electric Vehicles team promoting “EV Fast Charging Station Unveiling” days. First cab off the rank is Cabarita Beach, Bogangar on the NSW far north coast. This appears to be the NRMA site that opened last month, and they are having the “unveiling” on 18...

I just saw the TV ad for the BZ4x. I was almost starting to think it was an OK ad (I didn’t recognise the car), until the tagline and Toyota logo came up. I really have trouble with Toyota speaking with a forked tongue on EVs. Trash talking them (and by implication, their own product) in one...

Yesterday I happened to be in Marrickville at the Addison Road Centre and noticed a free Everty charger there. So I thought I’d give it a try, just for the heck of it. There are two AC units and a solar canopy, right next to an Egyptian street food truck, so a good setup. I had to download...

I recently received an email from Tesla inviting me to participate in a survey: Just wondering how widely this was sent out? I filled it out and provided some frank feedback. It asked questions on how satisfied I was on various things, what I do and don't like about my Tesla, what could they...

Has anyone ever beaten this?

Well… our garage door had a catastrophic mechanical failure last night, is completely jammed, and cannot be opened… even manually 🫤 So unexpectedly we are finding out what life is like when you can’t charge an EV at home… for about 6 weeks until we get a new door. Luckily (?) the failure...

In some idle moments yesterday I stumbled across the ARENA knowledge bank and found a bunch of reports lodged by various EV charging grant recipients. Some interesting stuff in there. The landing page is: https://arena.gov.au/knowledge-bank/?technology=electric-vehicles&item_type=Reports...

AGL has revamped their EV charging plan with a new offer called “Night Saver Energy Plan”. The benefit of this plan is an incredibly cheap 8c/kWh rate between midnight and 6am. You have to provide proof of EV ownership registered at the billing address to be eligible. I found it hard work to...

In today’s SMH/Age there is a “Drive” 12 page supplement on EVs. It seems to be available only in the printed edition or in the downloadable PDF replica if you are are subscriber. It does not appear to be on the “Drive” website (note Nine no longer owns the Drive brand). There is also a TV...

The Inner West Council in Sydney opened up a consultation on its draft "EV Encouragement Strategy" last September and the strategy is now ready to go to the Council meeting on 9 May. It's called "Powering Ahead". The papers for this meeting are a staggering 1100 pages long 😳, for those...

Driving into the Sydney CBD this morning on the Western Distributor I saw my first ever Tesla Taxi - as in a real Taxi, Taxi sign overhead and Taxi livery on the side. It was a white Model 3. Unfortunately it was a bit too far ahead of me to get decent shot of it on DashCam, and it then turned...

This is old-ish news, but for those interested in the details, for NSW at least, are in the updated Road Rules 2014, Sections 203B and 203C: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/inforce/current/sl-2014-0758#sec.203B The wording regarding ICE-ing (203B): A driver of a vehicle that is...

A lot of action is now happening in this space after, well, a lot of time of nothing. Ausgrid are now in on the act - 30000 kerbside chargers planned: https://www.ausgrid.com.au/About-Us/News/Pole-mounted-EV-charger...

I only indirectly found out about this today - the Federal Government (specifically the Department of Industry, Science and Resources) is consulting on a National Electric Vehicle Strategy. Submissions close 31 October: https://consult.industry.gov.au/national-electric-vehicle-strategy The...

I’m still scpetical that Cybertruck will be street-legal in any jurisdiction without significant redesign. Maybe Texas and Somalia.

Article in the Good Weekend (Nine Newspapers) today: https://www.smh.com.au/national/power-transfer-why-ute-loving-aussies-are-finally-demanding-electric-cars-20220628-p5axd6.html They are still quoting the EVs are 2% of new car sales number, which we know is a gross under-representation...

My recent road trip my be of interest to some... while nothing like Sydney to Darwin or a trip to the red centre, parts of this trip were a bit tricky as it got well off major highways and far from DC charging. On this trip we went up the coast to Tweed Heads, then inland to Toowoomba, down to...

This doesn’t seem to have been reported here so far. You’d have to think it’s only a matter of time before these price rises flow through to Australia. https://electrek.co/2022/06/15/tesla-tsla-increases-electric-car-prices-across-lineup/

Some might find this interesting... NRMA are holding their first "EV Drive Day" at the Honda Australia Roadcraft Training (HART) centre in St Ives on 23 and 24 July: In partnership with the NSW Government, the NRMA will run a series of electric vehicle drive days during 2022 and 2023, allowing...

Maybe that could be a new thread! Name your favourite non-Tesla DCFCs! Mine are Chargefox Karuah and Evie Taree.

Why did I not discover this website earlier 😄 https://pv-map.apvi.org.au/historical Interactive map which shows the proportion of dwellings around Australia with rooftop solar PV, or total installed capacity. Can be filtered by postcode, LGA or State electorate. Four postcodes apparently...

Apropos of nothing while I kick back and watch the Boxing Day Test, I compared the cost of a fully optioned Mac Pro to a Model 3 LR Red Multi-Coat with White Interior: Turns out Model 3 is a Mac Pro on wheels 🤣

I had a weekend away in Newcastle and had an unprecedented experience of seeing 10 Teslas in the wild in 10 minutes. We had finished lunching at Scratchley’s on the waterfront and saw (apart from our own): A Model 3 parked outside the restaurant 2 Model 3s plugged into the City Council...

I reckon there have been more ads on TV for pure EVs and plug-in hybrids in the past few months than there have been in total up to that point. Surely that’s a good barometer that we are moving beyond the niche of the “innovators” to the “early adopters”? It’s at least going to grab some wider...

I’ve been advised that there will be a scheduled grid outage for up to 8 hours (during the day) in my area and so I want to have my PW2 fully charged before it starts. The forecast in Sydney is pretty ordinary this week so I can’t rely on it being sunny to power my house. So what’s the best...

Interesting news this afternoon… I’ve never heard of a Megapack bursting into flames before, anywhere in the world. https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/fire-breaks-out-during-testing-of-victorian-big-battery-near-geelong-20210730-p58eh4.html GM had to recall a whole bunch of Bolts...

Canada, which used to be Australia’s fossil-fueled partner-in-crime, is joining the list of countries to ban fossil fueled vehicles: https://electrek.co/2021/06/29/canada-ban-new-gas-powered-car-sales-2035/ Canada can now be added to this list...

Visiting Cameron Corner is on my bucket list. I have to visit at least one of the seven “corners” [footnote] in my lifetime, just because. Has anyone ever been there in a Tesla? Even turning on all the charging options in ABRP broke it - can’t find a feasible route. I could get as far as...

It’s a start... Make electric cars cheaper: Labor promises tax breaks for EVs, battery storage

Still reflecting on whether it’s better or not. I noticed that one can only “like“ a post now... no more “informative”, “funny”, “helpful” or “disagree” (at least not for me). The feedback history on every post seems to have gone - so we all start from 0. The little head symbol on people‘s...

Funny thing happened yesterday... I parked in a tight spot in a car park, next to a pillar which prevented me getting out the drivers door. I don’t have Summon, so I got out on the passenger side and walked away, and the car did not lock, the screen remained on, and the lights remained on. I...

There didn’t seem to be an existing thread for posting random stuff about drives people have done in their Teslas - efficient drives, inefficient drives, long drives, random stats, that sort of stuff. I’ll try to kick this off with an interesting screen shot of the energy graph climbing and...

We wake this morning with wonderful news that Joe Biden will become the 46th President of the USA. He was very strong during the campaign on the need to properly address climate change and reduce emissions. He even went out on a limb and said the fossil fuel industry needs to be phased out -...

Probably lots of you know this, but if Model 3 is stopped and in ‘hold’ mode for more than 10 minutes it automatically goes into Park. I experienced this today and briefly wondered what had happened because there was a slight jerk when it happened. But it’s in the manual: “After actively...

This arvo I thought I’d use up some of my stored sunshine and go for a drive for the heck of it (as one does, with a Tesla) and also to checkout the perpetual roadworks near the St Peters M8 interchange and Sydney Airport. The maps in the Tesla are months out of date... I had the fun of driving...

How often have we heard that one reason Australia cannot shift to EVs is the massive load on the grid it would cause and just think of the cost of upgrading the grid to cope. Meltdown! So I did some simple calculations to see how many vehicles the national grid could cope with today if they...

For those interested: Electric and Hybrid Vehicle plan: NSW Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Plan | Future Transport Direct PDF download: https://future.transport.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/media/documents/2019/Future Transport NSW Electric & Hybrid vehicle plan.pdf Net Zero plan Stage 1...

If there's interest, I can publish these stats every month. I siphon up the live 15 minute stats from AEMO and store them in a database, along with estimates (not mine) of small scale/rooftop solar production based on detailed SRES and weather data, since AEMO does not see the latter but it's...

I had a weird experience yesterday. My wife (she of the always-winning-phone-key) and I were out and about, and after parking the car we got out simultaneously, and the car locked upon walk-away. When I returned to the car alone, my phone key was no longer recognised. Pulling on the handle...

While this topic is not Tesla specific, it’s in tune with the “mission”. I’ve been a 100% GreenPower customer for 20 years. Over that time the surcharges have been as much as 8c per kWh if I remember correctly. But eventually the cost reductions in renewable energy have gradually worked their...

With Slartibartfast celebrating its 6 month birthday on the weekend, it was also a marker that we have not purchased petrol for 6 months either, now being a 2-EV household. I’m not missing the experience :D I’m sure that pales into insignificance compared to many of the trailblazers here. How...

G’day - we did this drive recently and I was very impressed - we finished at roughly the same altitude we started at, so it’s not like we just went downhill :D A decent amount of this trip was driving at freeway speeds. In comparison, the lifetime efficiency achieved in my Nissan Leaf is...

I have just received my first quarterly electricity bill after switching to a 21c solar feed-in tariff with a new supplier. Comparing what the bills says with what the Tesla PW2 downloaded 5-minute data reckons over the same period shows this: According to PW2 data, about 7% of my grid...

I’ve tried http, https, ftp, ftps, SMB, vnc, ssh, telnet, port scan... nothing works! :D

My wife and I have separate driver profiles, but even if I open the door first and she is a distance behind, her phone “wins” as soon as she is in range and the profile changes from mine to hers, moving the seat, mirrors and steering wheel before I get in. I have to then manually select my...

This is not a big issue but it is irritating. I associated one of the key cards to my profile and edited its name, but in the Keys screen it says this key is an "Unknown key". My real name redacted in the photo below ;) next to the key it says Vostok's Key and below that it says 13:39 |...

I'm a data guy and love that I can download my daily PW2 stats from the Tesla app. I like to analyse the data, work out what is going on, and do "what ifs" such as comparing different grid plans to see which one results in the lowest cost, or what would happen if I increased the size of my...

I lined up at the St Leonards Tesla store and put down a deposit on a car that was still 30 hours away from being revealed. At the time, I was hoping I’d get my car in about 2 years. In the end it took over 3 and a half years. There was a general sense of excitement in the line and a feeling...

This got lost in the news last week due to you-know-what, but it's interesting for the fact that (a) we have an LNP government in this state and (b) the policy is arguably the most comprehensive released to date by any Australian government, however that is a pretty low bar to jump. Here's the...

Some of you may recall my frustration expressed in this thread Tesla market share of BEVs in NSW regarding the absence of national data on BEVs and Teslas. So instead of remaining frustrated, I contacted the relevant authority in every state and territory of Australia to source the data...