EV Charging &

There are many factors that affect charge times, but knowing the kW rating of your charger, and the size of your car’s battery in kWh will give you a rough estimate. Example: A 7.4kW charger charging a 50 kWh battery. The charger outputs 7.4kW over one hour, so to charge 50kWh: divide 50 by 7.4 = 6.76 hours from 0 to 100%.  A handy calculator that factors in all the variables is here.

If you plug charge your EV with the supplied ‘emergency charger’ that runs off a standard 3-pin plug, the same 50kWh battery will take 22hrs, 54 minutes according to the above calculator. If you are lucky enough to have three phase on your property, a 22kW charger will charge it in 2 1/2hrs. 

If you want to go full-EV and don’t have ready access to a fast charger, seriously consider installing an aftermarket charger in your home or business to make charging your vehicle practical.

Battery development has advanced dramatically in recent years. You can expect similar reliability to an ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) powered vehicle. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 and the Nissan Leaf both offer an 8 year/160,000km battery warranty.

Tesla announced that it expects its batteries should last 15 years, and Toyota’s BZ4X is expected to have 90% of its battery capacity after 10 years. California has proposed a durability and battery degradation requirement that batteries should maintain 80% of their capacity after 15 years.  Read more here.

There are certain practices that are said to reduce your EV’s battery life:

• Draining your charge to zero or near-zero
• Charging to 100% (80% is purported to be optimal)
• Using fast charging too often
• Heavy-drain driving too often
• Exposure to heat

You may have heard that an EV battery costs $35,000 to replace. While that can be true in some extreme cases, that is for a factory replacement battery. The technology exists that will recondition an EV battery to 95% driving range for a fraction of replacement cost.

As the raw materials required to make a battery are not actually consumed, there has been a push in recent years to make the collection of raw battery materials a ‘closed loop’ system. This means that batteries will potentially never be thrown away and will be reused again and again. 

Yes and no. Full EVs have zero CO2 emissions. PHEVs have slightly more depending on how much you use the petrol engine, and Hybrids emit the most of the three. To compare, the Hyundai Ioniq full-EV, PHEV and Hybrid emit 0, 26 and 84 g/km respectively. A Hyundai i20 diesel emits 127 g/km.   Over 5 years doing 15,000kms/year these cars will emit 0, 1.95, 6.3 and 9.53 tonnes of carbon respectively. NZ’s current environmental scapegoat, the humble 4×4 ute, will emit around 16 Tonnes over the same distance.

There are three other stages where emissions occur: manufacturing, energy production and end-of-life.

Manufacturing – The mining and extraction of rare earth metals can be very polluting. It’s hard to find reliable data on just how much CO2 is produced per vehicle, but this study compared the full life cycle including manufacturing of EVs and gasoline vehicles. They concluded EVs were on aggregate less polluting; becoming more pronounced as the average speed of the vehicles decreased (e.g.: urban driving in traffic).

Energy production – In New Zealand, our power comes from 84% (and growing) renewable energy. That makes our power some of the greenest in the world. Charge an EV using the United States’ 60% non-renewable energy and the carbon footprint increases. Charge your vehicle using self-generated solar power and you are using the greenest power you can get.

End-of-Life – In the past, a dead EV battery was landfill. But as the raw materials required to make a battery are not actually consumed, there has been a push in recent years to make the collection of raw battery materials a ‘closed loop’ system. This means that batteries will potentially never be thrown away and will be reused again and again.  

Road user charges (RUCs) pay for the maintenance of our roads. Diesel vehicles are subject to RUCs per km travelled, and petrol vehicles have them built into the price of fuel at the pump. EV vehicles are currently not subject to RUCs.

Only with funding from the likes of the Clean Car Rebate are EVs finally having the cost-of-ownership scales tip in their favour. It’s unlikely that RUCs will be introduced to EVs in the immediate future for this reason. We can rely on two things in this world though – death and taxes. When the cost of manufacturing reduces with the scaling of EV sales, you can be sure EVs will be subject to RUCs. It will likely be in the form of increased registration fees, as separate metering of electricity use would be difficult to implement.  

Not much. At the moment. LDV are releasing the new EVT60 ute in summer 2022. It has a tow capacity of only 1000kgs and that will reduce the 325km range by half. It’s therefore not particularly suitable as a work truck. Forget towing your boat. Ford makes the epic F-150 lighting in the states with 4500kgs towing, 480km range and a 0-100km/h time of 4.4 seconds. It is unfortunately unlikely to be sold in NZ, and if you somehow found a way to import one, a top-of-the-range one starts at NZ$130k.

The trucks in development are exciting though – Ford’s Ranger has a plug-in hybrid variant in final development and is being co-developed with the VW Amarok. They will likely be available in the next 24 months. RAM has a truck that is promising huge range, available 2024 and Toyota has a hybrid Hilux in development, but that won’t be ready ‘til 2025. The most exciting, and probably nearest available to purchase is the Rivian R1T. Rivian is a start-up that is bankrolled by Amazon. The R1T is a four-motor dual cab with 650km range, a 5tonne tow-capacity, and a 3 second 0-100km/h. It’s pre-production unit has been spotted undergoing final testing in the South Island.

With the second-hand ute market in NZ going absolutely bonkers, purchasing a second-hand ute is unviable. We’ll have to suck up the ute tax for a while yet, and the amount will be increasing year on year.

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This is the official information from Waka Kotahi:

So, if you bought a full EV with zero emissions, you are entitled to the full $7500. A new plug-in hybrid would likely fall in the second category, and you’d be entitled to $5000.

A new Toyota Corolla hybrid emits 107g/km of CO2. To work out your entitlement, use the above formula: 7500 – (107x50x130/145) = $2703.45

Under this scheme which is official as at 1/4/2022, an ICE vehicle with emissions under 146g/km is also entitled to a rebate.

All the above prices are GST exclusive. If the vehicle is used for business purposes, add GST to the above amounts. 

This is the official information from Waka Kotahi:

So, if you bought a new SR5 auto, double cab Hilux, it emits 207g/km of CO2. Your fee will be, using the formula above: (207-186) x 50 = $1050. A 5.7L V8 Ram 1500 emits a whopping 316g/km, and it’s fee would have been $6500 if the $4500 cap wasn’t there.

The Clean Vehicles Amendment Act
Proposes that from 1 Jan 2023 the 192g/km threshold be reduced to 145g/km. Subsequent years will see the threshold reduced further to 133.9, 112.6, 84.5g/km, and from 1 Jan 2027 the threshold will be 63.3g/km.

All the above prices are GST exclusive. If the vehicle is used for business purposes, add GST to the above amounts. More info here.