I am currently writing a book on the future of electric cars in Australia with a couple of collaborators. I am going to explore a few issues here on this blog. The first of these is the adopter groups which I will explore one by one. I start with a bit of a polemic on some of the early adopters
If I buy this battery and the government pays for half of it after 15 years I have $2,985 in my pocket but I paid $4,838 so I am still well behind. If I had to borrow the money, then I am even worse off because I have been paying interest all the way along. If instead, I put the money into my house mortgage and assume an interest rate of 4.5% then the internal rate of return is 4.28%. I now have AUD$7,885.94 in my pocket (the saved interest and the original money I have paid off my loan)
Extra panels to “overclock” your panels are a great investment. My overall calculations for the year are that we have made a 14.72% return on our solar system. That means that the return on the extra panels is about 25% due to the reduced capital investment required, which is not too shabby. Over 10 years that is about A$3,000 on an original investment of A$1,239.
Following the Labor Party announcements on electric cars, I was on the open line talkback with Jon Faine at 774 Melbourne Radio this morning talking about electric cars. I suggested incentives for electric car adoption as long as it was paired to new solar rooftop panels, and that Australia should be manufacturing electric car batteries. Jon and I disagreed on a few things. There is little time for nuance on talkback so I thought I would write this letter to put more detail around my expressed views.