Something just happened to set you and your EV free (nearly)

Friday, 16 August 2019

Pure-EVs are a small part of NZ's electrified vehicle fleet - but there's still a lot of choice.

OPINION: The Government's latest round of Low Emissions Vehicle Contestable Funding has allocated another $4.5 million of funding for electric vehicle infrastructure (matched by $12m from the private sector).

That's great and will result in 140 new charging stations - among many other things.

But delight is in the detail and there's a symbolic victory in the latest announcement as well: there will be an EV fast-charging station in Arthur's Pass.

West Coast here we come: two new charging stations will make Arthur's Pass accessible for most modern EVs.

Earlier this year we took a close look at New Zealand's EV infrastructure. Specifically, where you could and couldn't drive a pure-EV with 200km real-world range.

**READ MORE:

Charging infrastructure is seen as key to increasing NZ's EV fleet.

* The five best new EVs you can buy in NZ right now

* Govt unveils $11m electric vehicle boost for businesses

Hyundai Kona Electric is NZ's top-selling EV and does 400km. But most mainstream models are between 200-300km.

* A plug for the pleasure of driving an EV in 2019

* Lowest price to highest: every EV you can buy in NZ**

Extra range costs a lot, so Kia offers two versions of the Niro EV, doing either 289km or 455km on a charge.

Although there are well over 400 individual charging points around the country according to the Plugshare website (more than all of Australia, by the way), we restricted ourselves to fast-chargers that are readily available to the public.

That means ordinary motorists who need to top up in 20 minutes, rather than EV enthusiasts who delight in sniffing out hidden places to plug in - and will happily wait for hours if they happen to be somewhere like a camping ground with a 16-amp outlet.

We found a few road trips that could potentially be problematic, but not impossible.

The standout was Christchurch to Hokitika or Greymouth over Arthur's Pass, which is surely one of the great road trips. But also pretty much impossible in a standard-range EV, because it's 230km and involves a big climb. Going up the Alps will decimate your EV's battery and you only get about a third regeneration going back down again.

With the new Contestable Fund plan for a charge station at Arthur's Pass (and another for good measure on the same road, east at Castle Hill), that problem will be solved. You will be able to do this awesome road trip in pretty much any modern EV.

Getting from Hokitika south to the next charger at Wanaka is also a challenge (420km), but that was partly addressed in the last Contestable Fund: Ngai Tahu has now installed a ChargeNet station at Franz Josef Glacier, which splits the trip into 135km/285km increments.

Know what you might be thinking: the latest EVs have much bigger range, so bigger distances are no longer such an issue.

That's kind of true. The Hyundai Kona Electric is currently NZ's biggest-selling EV and that does over 400km. The new Tesla Model 3 is around the same price and it does at least 460km. The Kia Niro 455 EV can reach 455km (you can see what they did with the name there) in its flagship incarnation.

But they are all $70k-plus cars.

If you can afford them, luxury SUV-EVs like the Jaguar I-Pace, Audi e-tron and Tesla Model X also have 400km-plus ranges. But bring $140,000… and then some.

The more familiar, more mainstream (sort of) EVs like the Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Ioniq and Volkswagen e-Golf are all improving, but you're still talking claimed range of much less than 300km. So 200km between charges is nice safe figure to aim for.

During the Contestable Fund announcement, Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods also noted that the NZ EV fleet has tripled since 2015. Which sounds good, but that's only 15,453 vehicles; because it's easy to triple a very small number.

So there's very little hope of NZ achieving the previous Government's stated aim of 64,000 EVs on the road by the end of 2021.

But there never was really, with very little affordable EV product (here or globally) and no subsidy assistance available to reduce that high capital cost. At least not yet.

Never mind. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. We are getting there. Silently.