Jim's Quality of Life OnLine

What does the extraordinary history of the Australian national railway system have in common with today's clear-cut opportunity to reduce our car fuel bill to less than a tenth of what we are at present paying for petrol?

A lot -- because it appears that the same stifling forces of business protection and lack of government leadership are working to stop us achieving the convenience and the great benefits which are now available.

If you are old enough, you'll remember how we used to have to get out of the train at Albury, sometimes late at night, get all our bags together and carry them onto another train to take us to Sydney. The Melbourne train could not go right through. That was because we had different size railway gauges, three different sizes - NSW had adopted the European standard gauge of 1435 mm; Victoria and South Australia had built lines with the Irish gauge of 1600 mm, and Tasmania, Queensland and West Australia used the narrow 1067 mm gauge.

This was caused because various private operators and states "did their own thing" and subsequently defended their business position despite the fact that it was costing Australia multi-millions in additional transport costs and also greatly inconveniencing millions of Australians.

It is incredible to look back and realize that this went on for about 100 years, starting in the 1800s. It was not until June 1995 that we could travel from Brisbane to Perth via Melbourne and Sydney on a standard gauge track. 100 years!

What has this got to do with the price of petrol?

Well, right now there is a gentleman in Melbourne who drives his car into his garage each night and plugs it into a wall charger. This charger is hooked up to solar panels on the roof of his garage. Yes, and this charges up the batteries of his electric car. This man's name is Alan Gray, who is also the editor of Earth Garden Magazine. He told me that he estimated his car cost him 97 cents for 100 km of driving.

Whoopee! That's what we all want. But there was more.

He added that, because there were far fewer moving parts in an electric motor compared to a conventional engine, less maintenance was required.

Alan Gray's car -- a four-door hatchback - uses lithium ion batteries. The car can go from zero to 60 kph in just over seven seconds, compared with six seconds for a standard vehicle. It can comfortably travel at 110 kph.

The car was the brainchild of Blade Electric Vehicles director Ross Blade. After several prototypes, it was the first production vehicle assembled at his Castlemaine headquarters. Four of the electric cars have been sold so far.
To date Ross Blade has funded his own development work and he says there is a bleak future for this project unless he can secure a contract to supply the Government for some of its fleet of vehicles, or other support such as Government subsidy on the first 1000 vehicle produced. Mr. Blade said that this sort of Government support could see the price of vehicles come down bringing this great benefit to us -- and a new Australian industry established.
So, who wants to drive their car into their garage and have it re-fuelled by sunlight off the roof?

With petrol prices going up and up - and our need to develop solar power for so many requirements becoming more and more obvious -- isn't this a great opportunity for Government leadership?

Of course there will be difficulties; of course, there will be business lobbies against it -- protecting their own interests. But surely today we don't have to wait 100 years for the necessary Government action -- as happened with our railway lines?

Jim Vickers- Willis
www.vickers-willis.com