Duncan Garner: If we want an EV revolution, the government needs to put its foot on the gas
Duncan Garner: "Right now, most Kiwis can’t even afford the cost of the carpark, let alone the car." Photo / Getty Images
Not a week goes by without someone telling me my next car will be electric. Will it, really?
What I’d love to know is who’s paying for it? And where are all the chargers along the (so-called) EV network? If people thought getting stuck in a mall carpark on a rainy day was the pits, imagine if we all got electric cars tomorrow.
We’ve been reasonably fast and early adopters of the electric vehicle; a quick drive through a city near you will confirm that. It’s a great story but it comes with a problem. No one thought to knuckle down and build a proper integrated charging network, so the damn things keep moving.
Sure, you can charge at home – if you can get your car close enough to a power point and don’t live in an apartment. But even then, if you want to take a road trip out of town, you’ll need charging stations within easy reach to keep yourself going.
Our problem is interesting – or maybe it’s stupid – in that we jumped at the chance to drive electric, and the clean car discount meant numbers swelled, but no one thought to build official charging stations with equal enthusiasm.
We have a hodge-podge approach right now. Anyone can install them, and all sorts of companies, from the Warehouse Group to Meridian, have started doing so.
New Zealanders like to hit the road and explore but without basic EV infrastructure, vehicle owners may have been sold a lemon. Like a spaceship without the necessary rocket fuel, an electric car on a road trip without a secure charging network is like a Lime scooter with more seating.
Subsidies unplugged
The 2023 list of the most popular cars has just been released and while the Toyota Rav and Suzuki Swift were numbers one and two, for the second consecutive year Tesla was in third place. It’s become glaringly obvious that across 2022 and 2023 as inflation was biting middle NZ, well-heeled Kiwis were paying stupid money, making the most of Labour’s clean car discount by purchasing more than 7000 Teslas.
But with the axing of the subsidy on New Year’s Eve, that will change and EV owners will face paying road user charges now, too. Expect the sale of electric cars to plateau.