32 Electric vehicles in Raglan

By Nathan Rushton

Many Raglanites who commute over the divvy are already saving money by driving electric vehicles (EV’s). 32 are registered in the Raglan area which makes us second only to Waiheke Island for per-capita uptake. A year’s commuting in a fairly efficient petrol or diesel car will cost you about $3500 in fuel/RUCs whereas the same in an EV would cost you about $600. That’s a saving of over 80%! EVs need almost no servicing so you’ll save the cost of about two services too. With these savings an older EV will have saved you more than it cost in about 5 years.

Another benefit of going to an EV is that you no longer support fossil fuel companies and you produce way less greenhouse gases. Here in NZ with our 80% renewable electricity production the difference is even more spectacular. Petrol and diesel transport produce 18% of New Zealand’s greenhouse gases, so you can help meet our Climate Change goals by switching. Each year, an estimated 256 New Zealanders prematurely die from harmful diesel and other vehicle emissions, EV’s negate this by having zero emissions.

What’s the catch? One is possibly the up-front cost to buy the car in the first place. (Although many people don’t realise that EV’s start as low as $10,000, check out Trade Me and the new EV car dealer in Frankton.) Luckily, Savings Pool groups exist in Raglan to help people via Interest Free loans, instead of interest payments going to an overseas owned bank, surely it’s better to leave the money in our community for others to use. I’m paying $100 a week back to some of my fellow Raglaners for my EV instead of paying $100+ a week for Petrol/Diesel to Fossil Fuel companies.

This also maybe alleviated by the Government’s proposed Feebate scheme in 2021, but I recommend to not wait, and start saving on fuel right now.

Saving money, doing less harm to the environment and keeping money in the community are the aims of doing well by the ‘triple bottom line’ accounting method. Bringing together EVS, NZ’s renewable energy production and Raglan Savings Pool makes it achievable to leave fossil fuels and bank loans in the dust.

Many people ask where do I charge the car, and how long does it take. Well the trick answer is about 10 seconds, because that’s how long it takes to plug it in at home at night. And when I wake up it’s charged and ready to go, just like my phone. The more informative answer is about 8-10 hours when plugged in to a standard electrical socket (yes technically there’s millions of places to charge an EV in NZ). Or about 20-30 mins at a Fast Charger of which there are about 9 fast chargers in Hamilton and one in Raglan, most of which are free to use for the moment. How often do you get free electricity?! I’m sure taking advantage of it while it’s there.

Did I mention they’re fun to drive? Even budget EV’s are quite nippy, and will beat most cars at the traffic lights. And probably most of you will have heard about how fast the Tesla cars are, just search on YouTube if you haven’t. Then there’s the regenerative braking, which puts energy back into the battery when you decelerate. It makes for very smooth driving, and I hardly ever need to use the brake.