As everyone in Vic knows, the price of gas is getting ridiculous, $1.60 per litre at the moment. When I started driving, pertrol was $0.60.

Everyone is hurting, and as such there has been a lot of press about talk about electric/hybrid cars.

Would you buy one? Keep in mind that the cars make almost no noise at all, so no revving at the lights doing "chap laps" :)

I would never have thought it would enter my mind to buy one, but as it turns out, the cost is getting too much, and I think i might actually consider one for my next car.

Does anyone actually drive an electric? Are they any good?

Funny you've posted this cause i rid a scooter and i was thinking 'where are all the electric scooters?'. Like, making a scooter run on electricity (read: batteries) would be MUCH easier than cars .. yet i've not heard or read about it?

in summary: yes, i would buy an electric car over a petrol car, assuming i can afford it. I bet you $5 that the first 5 odd years these electric cars will be out of reach of the average person so we'll still be stuck with archaic petrol guzzlers and killing the planet.

*sigh*

Hi Goku,

Absolutely I would consider an electric car for sure. I'm not sure if you have heard but there is a "supercar" that is electric being developed by a small company in San Francisco named Tesla Motors. The Tesla Roadster is 100% electric and does 0-100km in about 3.9seconds. Im not sure about recharge time though. I know that some of the batteries on these cars take about 8hrs to fill, which is a big problem, and is one of the main reasons why i can't get one just yet. Currently it takes about 4 minutes to fill up a petrol based car vs 8 hrs for an electric. I know which one I would prefer.

The world is definitely going to be a better place when everyone's cars are electric though.

I heard another report on the news last night that petrol consumption is actually UP and is not decreasing. I wonder what price petrol has to hit before people driving less becomes a reality.

I was just talking about this on the weekend with a friend over dinner and he said he gets about 800km to a tank on a hatchback hybrid. I was shocked!!! Hearing this definitely made think twice about the price of petrol.

Hi guys,

I was at the 2009 Melbourne International Motor show yesterday and I did see some 'coming soon' electric cars. The one that stood out was called the Mitsubishi MIEV. It's supposedly coming out in the next year or so. Here's a write up:

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Drives/FirstDrives/articleId=124867

AJ

Hi, I ride a Vectrix Electric Scooter. It has a top speed of 100km/h (Gets there very fast) and a usable range of 40km if you are riding it hard, or up to 100km if you sit on 40km/h. It costs me 30 cents a day to get to and from work. Very quiet, powerful and a joy to ride.

Regards Bruce

It's not "would you buy one" it's "where the hell are they?". Most (if not all) the major manufacturers have EVs in the works and are due 2012-ish... First (mass produced) in Australia will be the Mitsubishi iMiEV which is a plug-in EV with no petrol engine, the next biggy will be the Holden (Chevy) Volt which gets 40 miles on a charge but has a small petrol engine which keeps the batteries charged for longer drives.

If either of those were available today, I'd have one. I got sick of waiting for EVs and got myself a "new" car while I wait... stupid car companies going broke in the US could have had these out much earlier (GM had the EV1 out 10 years ago!) but instead they wanted to pump out truck-sized cars.

Bruce that is INSANE! The cost of transport for you is very efficient. But don't you get a bit worried about safety? I know that I would love to ride a bike, but I can't bring myself to get over the safety side of things. I mean If you get hit in a Car, you will be fine (for a smaller crash). But on a Scotter, just the smallest Tap from a bad driver means you will get seriously injured...does this worry you at all?

Hi AJ, the safety side of things can be a concern. I've been riding motorbikes for 35 years. I was on the police bikes for 20 years and have attended numerous serious crashes involving motorcycles. I've only attended a couple of crashes involving scooters though. I think the difference is that a large group of motorcycle riders, ride to fast and take to many "shortcuts" in traffic, increasing their risk factors. You have to treat every other vehicle on the road as a threat and stay out of their blind spots. I love riding my new scooter, it is large, quiet, no polution, very cheap to run, only $350 a year for insurance and $89 for registration. It actually saves me money and pays for itself. Saying all that, if a could have bought an electric car (Like the Tesla S Signature) I would rather drive that.