By Margaret Maccoll
From scooters, skateboards and bikes to racing cars and even a bus all manner of cutting edge electric vehicles was on show at the Noosa Electric Vehicle Expo held last Sunday.Expo coordinator Vivien Griffin said the interest from Noosa residents was evident in the crowd of visitors that came to the expo, even despite the threat of rain.
Among the exhibitors was Barry Henderson who drove his Chinese-made Yutong bus to the Noosa expos from Coffs Harbour on a single charge with more than 30 per cent power remaining.
Barry said the he had offered one bus to Noosa Council to trial from the company that had almost 370,000 passenger buses operating around the world.
“They’re a quiet, smooth and totally different ride to diesel,“ he said. “They’re so quiet people can have conversations.“
The bus takes three hours to charge and runs about 420km on a single charge.
Alongside Barry and his Yutong bus was Trevor Richards who in 2007 registered the first electric car in Queensland, a converted ute. Trevor bought along his ute as well as his latest invention, a very flashy trike. Powered by 48 battery cells the vehicle has a range of 240km but it wasn’t a cheap build. The trike cost Trevor about $50,000 to build, $20,000 of that cost being the batteries which he said have a life expectancy of about 8-10 years.
Given the increasing popularity of electric bikes in Noosa it was no surprise to see a number of electric bike demonstrators at the event. Among them were so very slick models. Harry Proskefalas and Wolfgang Roffmann of Emotion concepts brought along their chopper-style Wild electric bike which sells for about $4,500-$5000 at speeds up to 50km/hr, requiring only a car drivers licence to operate. Their electric trick cruise at 70km/hr, sells for $6,500-$7000 and makes for a safe and comfortable ride, he said.
Glenn Brown of Noosa Classic showed off their Spanish made imports in various styles including the Cruzer which resembles an Old Indian motorbike.
