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get rid of scummo and his idiots...
In an effort to gain votes, the Coalition has targeted Labor's support for electric vehicles in their election campaign, writes Tarric Brooker.
AS THE YET UNDECLARED [it has now been announced as May 18] election campaign continues to unfold, it feels like we have all been here before, that this same broken record policy platform based on “sound economic management” and “jobs and growth” has been trotted out by the Coalition multiple times previously.
Frankly, that’s because it has. With or without minor additions like Tony Abbott’s “stop the boats” campaign, the Coalition has gone to every election since 2007 with essentially the same policy platform in the hope that the electorate will once again “not risk a Labor Government”.
Despite the substantial ongoing changes in the values and ideals of the Australian electorate on any number of political issues from climate change to healthcare, the Coalition seems unable to adapt to this changing environment, instead opting to continue with its broken record rhetoric.
That is until a few days ago, when the Morrison Government decided that Labor’s support for electric cars (which the Coalition ironically shares) was going to be one of the defining issues the Coalition was going to run on in this election campaign, perhaps in the hope that “stop the EVs” (electric vehicles) was going to resonate with voters in the same way as “stop the boats”.
At first, the Coalition’s push back against electric vehicles seemed like just the latest in a long line of policy thought bubbles trotted out by Scott Morrison to test the political waters. Yet, in just 48 hours, that thought bubble had coalesced into a party-wide campaign talking point that permeated not only the entirety of the Coalition’s ranks but also some Right-wing media sources.
Even the members of the Liberal party who define themselves as “moderates”, or “small L Liberals”, who claim they have a genuine desire to address climate change, have been quick to jump on the anti-electric car bandwagon.
Perhaps the most prominent example of this is Dave Sharma, the Liberals candidate for the seat of Wentworth, who has previously spoken out in favour of addressing climate change, arguably in an attempt to tout his credentials as the spiritual successor to Malcolm Turnbull.
In a recent statement, Sharma derided Labor’s electric vehicle policies as a Soviet-style engineering program that will become “pink batts all over again”. Sharma went on to say “I don't want to see it become like the Soviet Union where we all have to buy a Trabant”, referring to the poorly-built Soviet-era East German car.
Sharma’s support of the Morrison Government’s anti-electric car agenda is a profound departure from the political image he was attempting to craft during the campaign for the Wentworth by-election, during which he was touted as the future of the moderate wing of the Liberal Party and potentially a future Prime Minister.
Read more:
https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-coalition...
Note: Labor's "Pink Batts" episode was far more successful than any other privately driven business in this fair country. More than one million homes got insulated and it's only due to shonky private operators in for a quick buck that four deaths occurred in the installation of roof and ceiling insulation. But the media was highly unfair, slanted and forcefully driven by the CONservatives in regard to the accidents — and this left a wrong impression of failure. It WAS A SUCCESS. Many people saw their heating and cooling electricity bills slashed by 30 per cent due to the "Pink Batt" government initiative.
In regard to private enterprises, as at 21 March, there were 30 Australian workers killed at work in 2019. In 2018, the preliminary data show there were 157 Australian workers killed at work, compared with 190 workers in 2017.
- By Gus Leonisky at 12 Apr 2019 - 7:41am
- Gus Leonisky's blog
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advertising gurologist...
a pragmatic turd sees skid marks in his underpants...
Further to that tweet on Tony Abbott, SBS has let us listen to the doorstop (it’s off the main campaign trail and was a small group of journalists grabbing him at his campaign launch at the Manly wharf).
The so-called settled science is not quite as settled as people say. And that’s my position. Nevertheless we have only got one planet; we should do what we reasonably can to rest lightly upon it.
I have always said climate change happens; mankind makes a contribution. We should do what we reasonably can to reduce emissions.
What we shouldn’t do though, is turn our economy upside down in what turns out to be a futile green gesture.
... What I’ve always said is we shouldn’t have an emissions obsession. I thought a year or so back the best way to break the emissions obsession was to pull out of Paris.
Quite a bit has changed since then, including the prime minister, and I think it is fair to say this is a government that is much more sensible and pragmatic about all this today.”
Just a reminder that absolutely nothing has changed for this government in regards to the Paris target or its emissions reduction targets, under Scott Morrison.
It’s the same policy.
Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2019/apr/12/federal-elec...
towing your stink boat problem...
In response to Labor's plan to accelerate Australia's uptake of electric vehicles by introducing a target of 50 per cent of new car sales being electric by 2030, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that "Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend".
Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, he said: "[An electric vehicle] won't tow your trailer. It's not going to tow your boat. It's not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot with your family."
So, do electric vehicles have insufficient power to tow a trailer or boat, or to travel a reasonable distance for holidaymakers?
RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.
The verdictMr Morrison's claim is in need of a tune up.
Right now, there are a handful of electric vehicles available on the Australian market and only around half specify towing capacity. However, those powerful enough to tow a boat or caravan come with a hefty price tag of $100,000 or more.
Experts told Fact Check that electric vehicles under development by leading manufacturers and due to be released onto the market well before 2030, are likely to have the capacity to tow a trailer or boat with similar efficiency as petrol-based vehicles.
Electric vehicles produce a high level of torque which determines towing capacity; some models, in fact, have a higher power output than standard petrol vehicles.
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-10/federal-election-fact-check-elect...
And by the way, an electric car can accelerate faster than a petrol-diesel-gas driven one... and stink less... Now where did I moor my electric driven vessel...?
Read from top.
meanwhile in the US dumb dumb...
A coalition of free market advocacy groups, led by former Koch Industries lobbyist, urged Congress on Thursday not to extend the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit. In a letter rife with easily discredited and false statements, this coalition sent its plea to the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee.
Most of the 34 groups are funded by the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers’ donor network or have ties to Koch Industries. And most of the references cited in the letter have clear, demonstrable ties to Koch Industries and Koch funding.
The episode echoes a similar sequence from last September, when many of the same groups sent a comparable letter after Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and others introduced the Electric Cars Act of 2018.
The letter is further evidence of this network of Koch-affiliated groups ramping up their opposition to the EV tax credit.
“The American Energy Alliance (AEA) has organized a coalition to proclaim in one unified voice that there should be no expansion of the misguided electric vehicle tax credit,” Tom Pyle, president of the AEA and a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, wrote in a statement, first published by The Daily Caller News Foundation, which has received more than $2.6 million from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation since 2013. (That article, it’s worth mentioning, was published at 5:10 am EDT on Thursday, before the letter could have been delivered. Evidently, the Koch-funded think tanks gave the Koch-funded website an advance copy.)
Read more:
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/09/koch-funded-groups-still-begging-c...
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freedom to drive gas-guzzlers...
In recent years, the majority of Coloradans have been struggling to breathe clean air, and tailpipe emissions carry much of the blame. Lawmakers have started to take on this threat with a number of clean car standards and incentives coming out of the Governor's office and the state legislature. However, a newly formed coalition of car dealers, the oil and gas industry, and free market advocates are working to put the brakes on clean air policies in Colorado, and they're using a disinformation playbook often used by organizations in the Koch network.
Launched in March, the Freedom to Drive Coalition has fought against Colorado’s adoption of low emission vehicle standards (which the state’s Air Quality Control Commission approved in a unanimous 9-0 vote) and is now battling a complementary effort to adopt zero emission vehicle (ZEV, or electric car) standards that would greatly reduce tailpipe emissions.
Air quality in the Front Range — where more than 60 percent of Colorado residents live — has been so bad that it has violated national clean air standards for the last seven years. In 2018 alone, “there were 55 days when Coloradans were warned that exercise outdoors could be damaging to their health due to high ozone levels,” according to Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). That’s an average of one day per week where the air in this Rocky Mountain state’s most populated counties is so bad, it’s too dangerous to go out for a jog.
A full 30-40 percent of Colorado’s air pollution on high ozone days can be directly attributed to motor vehicles, according to a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment report. (Another 30-40 percent is attributed to oil and gas operations in the Front Range. State authorities are working separately to reel in those pollutants, and fighting another network of oil and gas industry front groups and trade associations.)
While Colorado policymakers work with public health and environmental groups to reduce vehicle emissions, the Freedom to Drive Coalition has ramped up public relations and lobbying campaigns over the past six months to combat the low- and zero emissions vehicle standards.
Who's Behind Colorado’s Freedom to Drive Coalition?Immediately upon launching earlier this year, the Freedom to Drive Coalition put Colorado's potential adoption of the low emission vehicle mandate in its crosshairs.
The group lists member organizations including oil industry groups like the Colorado Petroleum Association and the American Fuel & Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM) and auto groups like the Colorado Independent Automobile Dealers Association (CIADA) and the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association (CADA).
On the ground and online, the coalition appears to be run by a handful of Colorado-based public affairs professionals, including the former director of the Colorado state chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), whose national group was founded and funded by the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers.
Sean Paige fields press queries about Freedom to Drive from his personal public affairs firm called Affinity Advocacy. Paige spent three years as Deputy Director and Acting Director of Americans for Prosperity Colorado, the state chapter of Charles Koch’s national advocacy and political organizing group. Paige also spent nearly four years as Communications Director for the state Senate Republican majority and state Senate President Kevin Grantham, during which time he generated some measure of controversy by posting AFP materials from official Colorado Senate social media accounts.
Read more:
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/07/24/freedom-drive-coalition-koch-disin...
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think again...
Similar to the VHS versus Beta debate in the 80s, the battle between different types of green motoring could see hydrogen-fuelled cars come out on top over conventional battery-powered electric vehicles in the next five years.
Key pointsHydrogen cars have been proven to refuel quicker and have a longer driving range — which some say makes them the future of green motoring.
"The advantage of hydrogen cars is that it takes the same time to charge them as it takes to fill your car with fossil fuels — no more than about three minutes," Motor Trades Association of Queensland's chief executive Brett Dale said.
"With hydrogen you're more likely to use the same behaviour as you would to go into a fuel station and refuel your car.
"Although we use the language recharge, with hydrogen it's more like refuelling."
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-30/hydrogen-cars-could-be-commercial...
---------------------------
One of the disadvantages of such hydrogen cars is that you CANNOT easily make your own hydrogen. It's much easier to make your own electricity to recharge your vehicle — be it a car or a bicycle.
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smelly white smoke...
Problems with diesel particulate filters in top-selling Toyota cars have exposed Australia's 'lagging' vehicle-emissions standards, public health and environmental advocates say.
Key pointsState and territory environment protection authorities have sent more than 1,200 warning notices to drivers in the past year about their polluting cars, including hundreds of Toyotas with excessive smoke issues.
Last month, the ABC revealed Toyota is being sued as part of a class action over faulty diesel particulate filters (DPFs) in the Hilux, Fortuner and Prado vehicles sold in Australia between October 2015 and July 2019.
Scores of drivers have told the ABC their faulty DPFs cause the cars to spew out smelly white smoke and use more fuel.
Suzanne Harter, a clean energy campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Australia needed to tighten standards to stop it from becoming a dumping ground for less-efficient, more-polluting cars.
"Australia is currently lagging behind the rest of the world on vehicle-emissions standards," Ms Harter said.
"I think it speaks to a larger problem in Australia that we need to improve our standards, improve our testing regimes … and make sure the vehicles that are coming into our country are both fuel efficient and are able to protect public health better."
Ms Harter said the lack of standards can put motorists who have recently purchased a vehicle with a failing system in a difficult position.
Read more:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/toyota-diesel-emissions-expose-br...
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See also:
http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/26526
the battle of the electric cars...
Porsche North American President and CEO Klaus Zellmer said at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show that they respect Tesla as a sports car manufacturer, adding that they “love competition.”
Zellmer told CNET Roadshow's Tim Stevens that there “aren't that many ways to prove that it is a true sports car,” saying that the Nurburgring is almost like a meter for testing a company’s status as a sports car manufacturer.
“Anyone who's trying to go there to see how you're doing, we have great respect for. We love the competition. It's their business. We respect them. They've prepared many markets for electric cars. They probably lowered the bar [of entry] for other markets opening up and for other brands entering the EV space, which is great. And whatever they want to do, if they want to take us up on the Nurburgring Nordschleife, it's their call,” he said.
"That's obviously going to limit [Tesla’s] relevance of what they've been doing," he added, referring to Tesla’s modified Model S.
The Tesla Model S is already practising and testing at Nurburgring in preparation for their lap competition with Porsche’s Taycan, which set a lap record at Nurburgring for electric sports cars recently. The Model S versions practising on the track are reportedly modified, yet the modifications remain unknown.
One of the modifications is assumed by Insidevs to be the upcoming "Plaid" powertrain, with three motors and other performance-enhancing upgrades, with which a Model S just set a new record at the Laguna Seca track in California. For Nurburgring, the Model S is officially on the schedule for 21 September.
Read more:
https://sputniknews.com/science/201909171076820105-porsche-ceo-tesla-mod...
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