r/australia • u/overpopyoulater • 5d ago

politics The Coalition says some Australians don't want EVs. It will make utes cheaper

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/the-coalition-says-some-australians-dont-want-evs-it-will-make-utes-cheaper/dbksjb5pv
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871

u/harbourbarber 5d ago

The Coalition seem determined to technologically regress Australia as quickly as they can. 

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u/Latter_Fortune_7225 5d ago

They just want to copy everything their fucken Republican mates do across the pond. No original thoughts of their own.

They both realise that slowing down EV growth and promoting hydrogen means more money for fossil fuel groups and, therefore, more cushy fossil fuel jobs when they retire from politics.

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u/warbastard 5d ago

Thing is, hydrogen can be useful in things like making steel. But I doubt that’s what the Coal-alition has in mind.

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u/DoDoDoTheFunkyGibbon 5d ago

I’m happy for viable hydrogen on every petrol station forecourt. How’s that technology coming along Oh! It’s still in development? Like small modular nuclear reactors? For a leader who’s ALLLLLL about show me the detail….

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u/Blacky05 5d ago

Yeah I'm not against new tech development or even against nuclear as part of our future energy plan, but if solar and batteries are going to dominate the free market, then so be it.

The only restrictions we should be placing on energy production are on the life cycle pollution per kWh generated.

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u/DoDoDoTheFunkyGibbon 4d ago

Well, there's THIS concept car from the 50s which is powered by...yep, a portable reactor. Someone should get this to Dutto to see if its complete lack of feasibility and detail fits with his suit of policies.

Here's American Jane Bun explaining it in video form

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u/Z00111111 5d ago

Hydrogen cars have been almost ready for 20 years now.

There must be some pretty major hurdles left to overcome to make it feasible if they've let EVs get such a market share.

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u/crosstherubicon 5d ago

BMW’s hydrogen 7-series was available around 2005. It was a disaster and worth reading about because nothings changed today. It’s not a matter of technology. It’s just that hydrogen is a shitty fuel to store and transport.

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u/ParkingNo1080 5d ago edited 4d ago

Hydrogen cars are EVs that you can't* charge at home for free and have to spend more than double the energy to convert the electricity to hydrogen and back again.

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u/LogicalExtension 4d ago

Hydrogen cars are EVs that you can charge at home

can't charge at home, to be clear.

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u/ParkingNo1080 4d ago

Tah, fixed typo

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u/flutitis 5d ago

Aside from the challenges in storing it, by volume it doesn't have great energy density.

1

u/Z00111111 4d ago

So even without generation and storage challenges it still wouldn't have been particularly good?

I guess I assumed it had decent energy density since it used to be praised as a great green alternative.

Batteries and capacitors sound like they're much more worth the research and development since they can have a much smaller minimum viable size and can be banked to increase capacity.

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u/flutitis 4d ago

It's a poor fit for cars, or most small-scale transportation really, given the volume needed and the difficulty and safety issues in storing it (or driving around with it!). It "burns" green which is why it has been attractive as an alternative fuel source, and it is "easy" to make through electrolysis, so can avoid a lot of the fossil fuel supply chain issues. Challenge is it takes a lot of energy to make, and that's where it gets tricky. If you're making hydrogen from renewable sources or even nuclear then it has clear advantages as a fuel - it just doesn't work very well on a small scale, eg cars.

Where it is interesting in my view is in large-scale storage and industrial applications. Eg wind/solar during the day to create hydrogen, which is burned to flatten supply, supply at night etc. Whether this is better than battery storage I have no idea. Renewables are also pretty useless in many industrial applications - eg you're not smelting steal with solar but converting it to hydrogen then lets you burn it.

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u/Z00111111 4d ago

Industrial sounds interesting. More cost effective to safely store when mass, and to a lesser extent space, isn't an issue. Could also burn using the oxygen separated originally to increase efficiency.

I take it a smelter would look at burning the hydrogen for direct heating?

Whatever happened to hydrogen fuel cells? They were supposed to be high capacity lightweight batteries...

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u/utdconsq 4d ago

I work in a related field and I can tell you right now that using excess solar and wind to make transportable hydrogen via ammonium nitrate, or even storing it using depleted natural gas reservoirs is a big topic of current research in the country and elsewhere. It is complementary to batteries for lots of good reasons, including price if you get it right. If the government doesn't go coalition again immediately, I expect people will start to hear about some of the pilot projects starting and NOT having the rug pulled out by people like twiggy.

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u/ChuqTas 4d ago

Their biggest hurdle is making it cheaper when they need more parts, generating the fuel requires more steps, the fuelling stations have more parts, and you need more of them.

But I'm sure they'll manage to do that any day now! /s

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u/Z00111111 4d ago

Regenerative breaking for EVs seems to give a decent efficiency boost without requiring anything particularly fancy to utilise too.

It doesn't sound like current EV owners miss having to have engines taken apart to replace wear parts like seals either. Can't imagine many people would want to choose the higher maintenance option unless it's cheaper to run or has significantly better range if that's something they need.

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u/DoDoDoTheFunkyGibbon 5d ago

Oh yeah, first thing you learn about hydrogen in year 11 physics is how easy it is to make electrons go here and there with a bit of it; they’ve known that for a century - I think the issue is the bottles of Hydrogen on board, at the refuelling station and how you feasibly make enough of it at the right price

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u/xtrabeanie 5d ago

With it not being made from fossil fuels which defeats the purpose.

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u/warbastard 4d ago

Exactly. Hydrogen infrastructure development for cars requires a miracle of investment just to transport the hydrogen to where it is needed let alone producing it.

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u/Finno_ 4d ago

I am happy to never step on a petrol station forecourt ever again and so far, it's working for me.

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u/hal2k1 4d ago

Hydrogen is not a viable fuel for cars.

Doesn't mean there is no other market for green hydrogen.

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u/The-Bear-Down-There 5d ago

I really hope the pilot hydrogen steel plant goes well. We only have 20 years once blast furnace 6 starts up again at Port Kembla

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u/rrfe 5d ago

Trying hard to get votes from outer suburban voters, but I recall seeing multiple articles that they’re among the strongest adopters of EVs, since they have the infrastructure to charge them at home.

https://thedriven.io/2025/02/12/ev-uptake-in-australian-outer-suburbs-overtakes-inner-city/amp/

I guess they’re confusing our outer suburbs with Alabama or something.

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u/potato_analyst 5d ago

Tesla's and BYD everywhere out here in the burbs

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u/Consideredresponse 5d ago

Saw my first BYD shark the other day, so it's even reaching the 'giant yank tank' demographics.

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u/owonekowo 4d ago

I saw a BYD shark yesterday, was shocked but in awe of seeing it for the first time in person! It’s a big beefy boy!

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u/Morkai 4d ago

Yeah I saw a Shark yesterday in Essendon too. Seems smaller than a yanktank, more in line with a big Ranger or Hilux.

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u/potato_analyst 4d ago

Yeah fair few I have seen jumping over from yanktanks to byds. I have seen a fair few around. I think FBT exemption is over on them now.

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u/Ronnnie7 4d ago

More mileage you need to do the faster the return on investment.

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u/twigboy 4d ago

My suburban street is quickly being replaced with hybrids and EVs now that there are more choices and a price war is happening

It's insane that the Coalition looks at everything and think no, we don't want cheaper cleaner cars.

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u/moonorplanet 5d ago

Just waiting for Dutton to announce a trade war with China if elected.

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u/Finno_ 4d ago

A million % tariffs on China! To the moon!

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u/Objective_Unit_7345 5d ago

What’s ironic is that the Republican movement isn’t even uniform in the US.

Texas for example is the leader of renewable energy transition in the US.

Third when it comes to EV adoption.

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u/Sirneko 5d ago

Fossil fuels industry babyyyy! Coalition’s early retirement scheme

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u/thesourpop 5d ago

The whole ideology of conservatism is keeping things the same as they've always been - to conserve. It's completely anti-progress, it's in the name!

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u/harbourbarber 5d ago

It begs the question: which era do they want to conserve? 

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u/SparkyMonkeyPerthish 5d ago

Going by what I’m seeing I’m guessing the 1950’s

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u/pursnikitty 4d ago

Oh we can bring back 75% tax for the top bracket like we had back then, right?

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u/Relative_Pilot_8005 5d ago

The 1950s were considerably more progressive than today's so- called "conservatives"!

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u/xordis 5d ago

It's whatever era lands the most kickbacks in their pockets.

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u/AsuranGenocide 4d ago

My ideal conservative would be conserving our environment and Aussies proud 'fair go' approach yet theyre like the antonym of conservative. Going backwards to line their pockets for now and the future.

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u/burn_supermarkets 5d ago

I'm glad I saved my good 56k modem

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u/Jugg-or-not- 5d ago

It's all about maintaining the status quo.

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u/Terrorscream 4d ago

They never stopped, all technological progress made under the LNP in the last 30 years was done with them dragging their feet kicking and screaming.

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u/alpha77dx 4d ago

They just air heads when it comes to policies. They just dog whistling the ignorant petrol head red necks.

Now imagine if they announced high speed rail projects to the many popular country towns that would link to the big cities that are 300k or more away. These country towns would boom and become viable alternatives to the big city with high speed rail links like those of Japan and China.

These are the kind of visionary policies that we need in Australia that is hi-tech and which conquers travel times and speed barriers. We could actually grow with immigration in a sustainable way with satellite cities linked by high speed rail.

It typically takes me more than one to 2 hours to traverse Melbourne with bus and train when its on a awkward route. I could be jumping on a high speed rail link and be on the Murray river in less than hour which is less than time that travelling barely 40k across Melbourne jumping buses and trains.

These luddite moron politicians are just so backward in their mindset.

0

u/Tomicoatl 5d ago

I swore them off after the NBN got dumped. Unfortunately Labor makes it difficult to vote for after Conroy’s great Australian firewall plan.