The diesel generator behind the electric car charging point

It’s a diesel powered electric car point:

The fossil fueled electric car…

It’s becoming a joke all around the world — the EV in Australia powered by dirty diesel. But what’s the difference? Most EV’s in Australia are running on fossil fuel — the generators are just hidden behind longer extension cords. (Ones that carry 240,000V). EV’s on our grid are running on 80% fossil fuels every day.

The sign on the charger above says “Nullabor” — the vast treeless and grid-free centre of Australia — but this is actually a test site in Perth (the trees were the giveaway).

The 3,000 kilometer trip across the Nullabor from Perth to Adelaide is such an achievement for an EV that it’s practically a news story each time one makes it. Electric Car owners carry a “chip” about not being able to drive across the country like any real car owner could. So Jon Edwards, a retired engineer from Perth, set up this test site in his backyard. He wanted to know if it could be a realistic stop-gap for our far remote roads.

To me, this looks like a chain of efficiency losses going from diesel to mechanical to electrical […]