In New Zealand, we enjoy some of the cleanest energy in the world with renewable resources like hydro, wind and solar contributing significantly to our national electricity grid.
“Shifting to electric vehicles is critical to achieving our local and national climate goals. It’ll undoubtedly help us become more energy independent, improve air quality and reduce the costs of operating a car. But it’s no silver bullet,” says John Mauro, chief sustainability office for Auckland Council. So far we have little in the way of incentives to encourage the 160,000 people who buy new cars each year to choose electric, and while e scooters are increasingly becoming a popular choice for low emission urban travel, they won’t be enough to offset the C02 emissions of our steadily increasing combustion engine fleet.
Associate Minister of Transport, Hon Julie Anne Genter is looking to make changes. “We have to make fuel efficient cars and electric vehicles more affordable to reduce pollution and protect future generations the climate crisis. New Zealand is one of only three developed countries not to regulate the fuel efficiency of vehicles entering the market. As a result, the cars imported into New Zealand pollute more and cost more to fill up,” says the minister.
The Government’s renewable energy goals seem practical. In 2017, 82% of New Zealand’s electricity was generated by renewable resources. The aim by 2025 is 90%. Ecotricity, a locally owned energy company, uses hydro, wind and solar to generate 100% certified carbon zero electricity for households and businesses around the country. Other major energy suppliers vary from 100% renewable energy (Mercury Energy) to 80% renewable energy (Contact Energy).
As the country’s only provider of 100% renewable, carbon zero certified electricity, Ecotricity sees itself as being well placed to be the company who will electrify New Zealand’s slowly growing electric car fleet. So far it supplies its carbon zero electricity to one of the country’s leading electric car charging networks, Charge Net, and actively encourage New Zealanders to go electric.
The Government has identified electric cars as a key component to helping New Zealand reach sustainability goals.
We’re investigating a range of regulations and incentives to make it easier for Kiwis to buy more fuel efficient and electric vehicles.
“The Government needs to lead by example and we’ll have more to say soon about how we’re going to clean up the government vehicle fleet,” say Hon Julie Anne Genter. The minister expects to take options to cabinet shortly to address this.
Some time during 2018 the New Zealand electric car fleet exceeded 10,000 vehicles. Even against a modest target of only 64,000 electric cars by 2025, this level is low. The target of 64,000 seems even smaller when we consider that the latest figures show significant growth in the number of petrol and diesel cars. Currently there are over 3.6 million cars on our roads with approximately 160,000 new ones being added annually. This means that if we meet the current targets, less than 2% of all light vehicles will be electric in 2025. Percentage-wise this puts New Zealand behind other OECD countries who have more ambitious targets in place.
According to the Motor Industry Association (MIA) of New Zealand figures, there have been 2513 new electric or hybrid electric vehicles registered so far in 2019. The MIA breaks electric and hybrid vehicles into six categories: Electric, Electric-Petrol Extended, Hybrid Petrol, Plug-In Petrol Hybrid and Diesel Hybrid and Plug-In Diesel Hybrid.
So far the top-selling vehicle in 2019 is the new Toyota Corolla petrol hybrid. 414 of these vehicles have sold already in 2019 contributing to Toyota being the top-selling brand for electric and Plug-In-Hybrid-Electric Vehicles (PHEV) in New Zealand. Other brands and models of note include the Mitsubishi Outlander which is the highest-selling petrol hybrid so far in 2019 and the Hyundai Kona which is the top-selling all electric with 126 sold so far in 2019. Hyundai also has the second highest-selling car in this category – the Hyundai Ioniq.
“The choices for new electric and hybrid second-hand vehicles are growing slowly, and, at the rate they are going, it is dubious whether New Zealand will meet the target of 64,000 electric or hybrid electric vehicles by 2025. Not everyone can afford an electric car, for one, and taking a car-only approach is short-sighted. There are huge gains from electrifying buses, bikes, trucks, even ferries. There might be even bigger gains from designing out cars from some places so they’re safer, greener and more walkable,” says John Mauro.
So where does this leave the environmentally conscious urban traveller in the meantime? John Marau says, “We can’t sit idle and wait for change to happen.” He believes it’s important to work closely with central government to improve fuel economy and like the Associate Minister of Transport he believes we must make cleaner, more efficient cars more affordable. “It’s about thinking ahead and future-proofing the charging infrastructure, trialling and testing new technologies,” says John. One new technology that is becoming a viable low investment option are e scooters.
With a safer 15km per hour maximum speed limit, local choices will include Wave, Lime scooters and newcomer, Flamingo. Each can get you just about anywhere in and around Ponsonby and the surrounding suburbs. It’s a low carbon way to travel around the inner city.