Whether we like it or not, electric cars are the inevitable replacement for the internal combustion engine and the only question is how soon they will be a viable option in new car sales showrooms. Battery development is progressing at an amazing rate and both the range of electric vehicles and the speed at which they can be recharged is ever improving.
Henry Ford taught the world that the automobile could be brought within the financial reach of ordinary people when he produced the Model T on a production line basis. This vast industry is in constant upgrade and driver and passenger safety have improved out of sight with crumple zones and the development of air bags. The car of today is a vast improvement on the model of just a few years ago.
What is surprising is that both governments and the car industry have failed to set a few basic standards to ensure that electric cars are compatible on a world wide basis, and the most obvious need is compatibility of charging points. We have not even laid down a standard to ensure that the public charging points in adjoining states mesh with one another.
Car makers today make vehicles for world distribution. A long time ago that lack of standards resulted in the division of the world into the confusion of right and left hand drive becoming established in different world segments. Its probably too late to rectify that mistake, but the era of the electric car presents an opportunity to get a lot of things right from the start.
Petrol and diesel operated cars delivered big profits to their makers from the sale of spare parts and there is a vast price difference between basically the same part once it is branded with the car makers logo. The electric car is very different and it will involve far fewer parts and this presents an opportunity to achieve price stability. Where interchange can be achieved, the supply chain improves and the price of individual parts drop sharply.
We should learn the obvious lessons from the past. When the Australian colonies decided they needed railways they disagreed on a common gauge resulting in trains unable to use the rail system between individual states. People of that era remember the necessity on a Sydney to Melbourne journey - on a frosty winter night - to disembark with their luggage and change trains at Albury because of this fiasco.
We will only get this one opportunity to get things right with the electric car and ensure that the same car can easily transit from state to state in Australia, and be transferred anywhere in the world without facing a difference in charging plug type or spare parts incompatibility.
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