Landmark road test reveals popular EVs fall ‘significantly short' of advertised ranges
'A landmark Australian road test has revealed many of the popular EVs, including Tesla … fall significantly short of their advertised battery range in real-world driving conditions,' Mr Price said.
'The 2023 BYD Atto 3, can you believe this, was 23 per cent below the advertised road distance.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
First robotic surgery gives granny '15 minutes of fame'
When a grandmother fell and severely injured her shoulder on Christmas Eve, she never thought a robot would be the one to surgically repair it. Kerry Stubbings and her husband had embarked on a grey nomad adventure and were in Perth when she slipped out of a caravan, landing directly on her shoulder. The pain got worse until she started losing function of her arm and was unable to open car doors or hang washing on the line, ensuring many sleepless nights. Ms Stubbings needed medical attention so the couple made the lengthy drive back home to Mackay in far north Queensland. "It was a long drive home," she told AAP. The 66-year-old was sent to Townsville's Mater Hospital and was told she would need a total reverse shoulder replacement after tearing most of her tendons. When Ms Stubbings got a call a few weeks later telling her that a robot would be doing the procedure in an Australian-first, she was shocked. "I didn't expect it in my lifetime," she said. "I thought this was just out of this world, it was amazing." Orthopaedic surgeon Levi Morse explained the benefits of robotic surgery, saying it was less invasive, had smaller wounds, was more comfortable and had a better recovery time. "That sealed the deal for me," Ms Stubbings said. Townsville's Mater Hospital has had the Stryker Mako Ortho Robot since 2011 and has been performing knee and hip reconstructions. But it was recently upgraded to include new technology for shoulder surgeries. The robot has an implant plan uploaded before the surgery, then uses signalling devices in real time to detect the patient's bones and anatomy so that cuts are made within particular parameters, much like bumper bars at 10-pin bowling. Ms Stubbings' surgery went very well, paving the way for more to be done, Dr Morse said. Both Ms Stubbings and Dr Morse felt it was a huge honour to be part of the Australian-first surgery, with Mater Hospital becoming the sixth in the world to perform the procedure. "It was a privilege to be selected to be the first surgeon, and even more so being in Townsville," Dr Morse said. Ms Stubbings said her operation showed robotic surgery was safe and not something to be feared. "It's a nice little legacy to pass on in the family history," she said. "If I'm going to have 15 minutes of fame, I couldn't think of a better way to do it." Her recovery is going well, and the grandmother is excited to have no pain when doing everyday tasks. "Even just to lift something out of your wardrobe, a coat hanger or something," Ms Stubbings said.
West Australian
2 hours ago
- West Australian
First robotic surgery gives granny '15 minutes of fame'
When a grandmother fell and severely injured her shoulder on Christmas Eve, she never thought a robot would be the one to surgically repair it. Kerry Stubbings and her husband had embarked on a grey nomad adventure and were in Perth when she slipped out of a caravan, landing directly on her shoulder. The pain got worse until she started losing function of her arm and was unable to open car doors or hang washing on the line, ensuring many sleepless nights. Ms Stubbings needed medical attention so the couple made the lengthy drive back home to Mackay in far north Queensland. "It was a long drive home," she told AAP. The 66-year-old was sent to Townsville's Mater Hospital and was told she would need a total reverse shoulder replacement after tearing most of her tendons. When Ms Stubbings got a call a few weeks later telling her that a robot would be doing the procedure in an Australian-first, she was shocked. "I didn't expect it in my lifetime," she said. "I thought this was just out of this world, it was amazing." Orthopaedic surgeon Levi Morse explained the benefits of robotic surgery, saying it was less invasive, had smaller wounds, was more comfortable and had a better recovery time. "That sealed the deal for me," Ms Stubbings said. Townsville's Mater Hospital has had the Stryker Mako Ortho Robot since 2011 and has been performing knee and hip reconstructions. But it was recently upgraded to include new technology for shoulder surgeries. The robot has an implant plan uploaded before the surgery, then uses signalling devices in real time to detect the patient's bones and anatomy so that cuts are made within particular parameters, much like bumper bars at 10-pin bowling. Ms Stubbings' surgery went very well, paving the way for more to be done, Dr Morse said. Both Ms Stubbings and Dr Morse felt it was a huge honour to be part of the Australian-first surgery, with Mater Hospital becoming the sixth in the world to perform the procedure. "It was a privilege to be selected to be the first surgeon, and even more so being in Townsville," Dr Morse said. Ms Stubbings said her operation showed robotic surgery was safe and not something to be feared. "It's a nice little legacy to pass on in the family history," she said. "If I'm going to have 15 minutes of fame, I couldn't think of a better way to do it." Her recovery is going well, and the grandmother is excited to have no pain when doing everyday tasks. "Even just to lift something out of your wardrobe, a coat hanger or something," Ms Stubbings said.
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
‘Economic fantasy fiction': Productivity Commission's delusional renewables advice almost as bad as its call to give AI providers copyright law exemptions
The Productivity Commission's latest advice to the federal government reads like economic fantasy fiction. Workers could pocket an extra $14,000 by 2035, the commission said late last month all we need is more "upskilling" and smarter policy choices. The sheer audacity of this claim reveals how disconnected these bureaucrats are from economic reality. This is less policy analysis, and more like wishful thinking with an official letterhead. Then, just this week, the commission warned against a tough approach to regulating AI. Perhaps most incredibly of all, the commission suggested a carve-out in the Copyright Act that would essentially give artificial intelligence platforms immunity to rip off Australian artworks. The commission's core assumptions on productivity fall apart the moment any real scrutiny is applied. Their promise hinges on returning to historic growth rates through better policy choices. However, they conveniently ignore the structural forces that make such growth all but impossible. We're not living in the 1990s anymore and the global economy has fundamentally changed. No amount of government tinkering will undo that transformation. The upskilling obsession reveals just how out of touch our policymakers are with the mechanics of modern labor markets. They speak of 'reskilling' as if it's a magic fix, as if throwing workers into online courses will somehow future-proof their livelihoods. But every month, artificial intelligence wipes out another tier of employment. Bank tellers, data clerks, call center workers—even once-secure roles like radiologists—are being quietly, efficiently replaced by code that doesn't sleep, strike, or ask for a raise. Some might see this as a skills gap. Others, however, could and perhaps should see it as a race humans were never meant to win. Machine learning improves at exponential speed – human learning doesn't. A software engineer spends years mastering Python, only to find AI now writes cleaner, faster code in real time. Accountants train on new platforms, while algorithms already file complex returns in seconds. Oncologist sharpen their diagnostic skills just as AI scans detect abnormalities they'd never catch. The commission's solution borders on insult. Telling workers to pivot—to learn faster, hustle harder, adapt endlessly is all well and good. But adapt to what future, exactly? Most of these 'new jobs' either don't exist yet or never will. Teaching coal miners to code sounds progressive until you examine the programming job market. Junior developers already struggle to find work as AI handles routine coding tasks. Senior programmers see their expertise commoditised by tools that debug, optimize, and deploy software automatically. The commission wants displaced miners to enter a field where experienced professionals face unemployment. Truck drivers face autonomous vehicles, while lawyers compete with legal research AI and teachers watch online algorithms delivering personalised instruction. This upskilling agenda offers a cul-de-sac, not hope It's economic naivety masquerading as forward thinking, sending workers into career dead ends while pretending to offer salvation. And that's just the beginning of the problem. You see, the commission isn't just betting on impossible retraining timelines. It's doubling down on an energy policy that has already imploded abroad. Australia wants to replicate Europe's green gamble, oblivious to the smouldering aftermath. Germany poured billions into solar panels and wind turbines, crafting the most ambitious green agenda on Earth. The result was nothing short of disastrous: industrial flight, soaring household power bills, and a once-dominant economy now called the 'sick man of Europe.' And why is it sick? Because its leaders ran it straight into intensive care. They shut down nuclear, sidelined coal, and bet the future on weather-dependent infrastructure, then acted surprised when the lights flickered and factories fled. Australia's bureaucrats looked at that disaster and drew the bold conclusion to do exactly the same. Wind and solar remain inherently unstable - beholden to the weather, not demand. When the skies darken and the wind dies, turbines stall and panels fade. Industry doesn't wait patiently; rather, they shut down and assembly lines freeze. Grid operators scramble to prevent blackouts by reigniting the same fossil fuel backups this green crusade was meant to retire. These systems don't run on sunshine and spin. They run on stability. But stability doesn't seem to factor into this plan. The Productivity Commission marches on, as if physics will fold under political pressure. However, the laws of energy don't bend for bureaucrats. Without firm, reliable baseload power, Australia may very well find itself hurtling toward an engineered collapse: anemic infrastructure, forced outages, and critical supply chains held hostage by clouds and still air. To make matters even more infuriating, the real productivity killers remain untouched. There is no mention of the regulatory noose that strangles business decisions, nor a plan to reduce the compliance costs that multiply faster than actual output. Likewise, it turns a blind eye to the effort to confront the ideological mandates that prioritise virtue-signaling over efficiency. Instead, we get more box-tickers—climate officers, diversity consultants, sustainability auditors—all feeding off a parasitic industry designed to make producing anything meaningful as difficult as possible. While the commission chases fantasies, the obvious fixes are ignored. Simplify the tax code. Slash red tape. Eliminate layers of useless bureaucracy. Let people build, invest, and hire without a nanny state breathing down their necks. But none of this appears in the report. Just more government-led 'initiatives,' more central planning, more expensive solutions that don't solve. Their $14,000 promise is nothing but a fairy tale for people who refuse to read the footnotes. Politicians need cheerful soundbites while real wages shrink. The commission delivers, feeding them a whole host of dressed-up delusions. When the results don't materialise, the blame will fall on the public's lack of 'buy-in.' And then the whole charade starts again. We've seen this script before. Five-year plans that delivered nothing. Grand industrial strategies that wiped out entire sectors. Transformation agendas that transformed only the size of bureaucratic budgets. The Productivity Commission's latest report belongs squarely in that long, sorry tradition of economic self-sabotage. Australian workers deserve better than empty promises and policy cosplay. The nation's productivity crisis didn't come from a lack of enthusiasm. It came from decades of mismanagement, regulatory excess, and ideological capture. No amount of 'upskilling' will fix the structural decay created by the very people now offering solutions. John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist who writes on psychology and social relations. He has a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation.
