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I have seen those ads here in Victoria a few months ago , haven't seen them recently. They will have to spend shite load on the electricity infrastructure first. We have warnings about overloading the grid at peak times in summer with all the aircons and such plus ev charging.
That's alright, in 20 years time you enjoy your green electricity to run your heat pump in winter and driving your EV. Me and my family will be burning wood in our wood heater and using my wood fired pizza oven, and I will be driving my petrol powered car, bike and boat and cooking on our gas stove And the beauty of all that will be that when the power goes out we won't be sitting at home in minus 3s freezing our arses off, my car won't need 10hrs on the charger so I can go out in the morning, and I can cook whatever I want because we won't be reliant on electricity.
. And our energy bill is something we just don’t worry about at all. Our water bill is higher than our household energy bill.
Don’t stress, things won’t change overnight, but we’ll see a steady trend away from fossil fuels. The net zero date is about 2050 - about 26 years away. It won’t be a case of ‘business as usual’ up to 2049 and then suddenly switch over. Rather, it’ll be a progressive change over the coming decades.
We are already seeing people switching to EVs and saving considerably on their energy costs. And they can recharge at home without any worry about the uncertainty of petroleum supplies and prices.
Personally, we have been moving from gas for the past few years. We have been completely off gas for a year or so now. We have heat pump hot water, we use reverse cycle air conditioners for heating and cooling, we have an induction cooktop. Even my workshop is air conditioned
Many others are also doing the same. Some do it for environmental reasons, many do it for the cost savings, and others do it for both. If anything, the potential savings will increase over time - the cost of gas will go up, and people can make their own electricity at home. Electrification is definitely cheaper.
The same trend will happen in transport. People will progressively switch to EVs as the price of EVs come down. The increasing cost of petrol will also drive that change. Imagine if we have a war and our fuel supplies are disrupted. We’ll soon find out if we really do have 27 days worth of fuel in the country. EV users will be recharging at home while we queue for rationed petrol.
At some point, new ICE vehicles will cease to be available in the new car market (ACT, EU, UK, and others banning new ICE sales from 2035?). Petrol will probably become increasingly expensive and EVs will become cheaper (you can buy a new EV for $36,000 otr). Depending upon how we are going with our progress to net zero, it wouldn’t be difficult to see the government increasing excise on fossil fuels to hasten the change. I can’t see them doing anything to reduce the cost of fossil fuels.
But these changes won’t be compulsory in the sense that your ICE car won’t be banned or confiscated. I’d be confident that you’ll be able to keep it and drive it all you want (at least up to 2050). But you’ll probably find it getting progressively more expensive to do so. Others will simply make the change from gas to electricity, and from ICE vehicles to EVs as the they’ll be chasing cost savings.
If you are feeling pain refuelling the ute now, I very much doubt that it‘ll get easier in the future, let alone over the next 20 years.
