The Government has significantly increased the number of electric vehicles in it’s fleet.
NZ Herald: Just how green is the ministerial car fleet?
The Government has confirmed it intends to transition its full fleet, including the 32 BMW 7-series vehicles, to emissions-free vehicles by 2026.
In total, 29 per cent of all ministerial vehicles – including Crown and self-drive cars are electric vehicles (EVs). That’s up from 2 per cent this time last year.
A major increase, with plans to continue converting the fleet to EVs.
The complete Crown fleet is made up of 72 vehicles, both owned and leased.
But a tiny fleet.
EVs aren’t viable for everyone yet. The up front cost will put many people off, with few fully battery powered vehicles and chargeable hybrids costing from about $50 thousand. With reduced energy costs the life time cost may be lower, and the Government can ‘afford’ to invest up front, but many people will be reluctant to do this.
This comes not long after the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on New Zealand’s roads passed 10,000 – that’s up from just 210 five years ago.
Although that’s a dramatic increase, it makes up just 0.25 per cent of New Zealand’s total vehicle fleet.
A tiny fraction of cars on the road.
Apart from around town driving there are other drawbacks. One major one is the limited range of EVs – it is improving, but still well behind the range of a car on a tank of petrol.
There is also only a small number of charging stations around the country.
And even if you can find a charging station on a trip you have to wait until the car is recharged. This takes much longer than pumping petrol.
One option without the limitations are hybrid EVs that use a petrol engine supplemented by battery power. These are much more competitively priced – new Toyota Corolla hybrids cost much the same as conventional Corollas. But they only reduce fuel use by up to a third, a significant saving making these economically attractive, but only a partial solution in reducing fossil fuel use.
Another issue I haven’t seen addressed – if there was a major shift to EVs, where would the power come from to charge them? Most of our current power supply is renewable, mainly hydro, with some wind. A big increase in wind generation would create continuity of supply problems because of weather variability. Wind power can only supplement on demand power sources.
The Government is setting a good example switching to EVs, but they would do much better if they came up with a plan for how to fuel the inevitable increase in EV use.