Electric Cars

Stuff reports:

There are fewer than 200 electric vehicles currently in the country but a recent push could see it bolt to 70,000 by 2020, provided some key initiatives get a charge.

I’d bet a large amount of money that there won’t be anywhere near 70,000 electric cars by 2020.

There are around 400,000 electric cars in the world. That will grow in the next six years, but thinking that a country that is 0.1% of the world’s population may have say 10% of the world’s electric cars is nonsensical.

McEwen said there were currently fewer than 200 electric vehicles in the country, but global initiatives targeted an uptake of 2.4 per cent of a nation’s total stock by 2020.

In New Zealand that would translate to about 70,000 electric vehicles in just over five years.

“Are we going to get to 70,000, who knows?

I do. No.

He estimated an electric vehicle added about $500 to a household’s annual power bill.

This was roughly a fifth of the cost of fuelling a petrol car travelling the same distance over a year.

Which means when the price difference reduces to under $20,000 or so, then the fuel saving will be worth it.

Mitsubishi’s new Outlander PHEV (plug in hybrid electric vehicle), which cost $59,990, had seen demand surge already this year, he said. These were being sold at about a rate of 50 a month, but a used electric vehicle market was beginning to emerge as well.

Wait a second. If there are less than 200 electric vehicles in NZ, then how can there be 50 a month being sold?

Otherwise, improved infrastructure, such as “fast charge” stations which can “refuel” an electric vehicle to 80 per cent capacity in less than half an hour, needed to be rolled out across the country.

But who pays for these? There’s one in Wellington as the Z station, and my understanding is that staff can’t recall having ever seen an electric car using it!

As technology improves, and costs drop, I’m sure electric cars will become more popular. But this will not happen greatly in the next few years.