https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/EVs/119339212/the-questions-owners-of-electric-vehicles-get-asked The questions owners of electric vehicles get asked Feb 08 2020 Matt Lawrey
[image https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/z/1/w/o/6/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.1240x700.1z1uq4.png/1581133749961.jpg Matt Lawrey at the wheel of his Nissan Leaf electric vehicle / Darcy Lawrey video flash ] OPINION: One of the first things you learn when you buy an electric vehicle is how little a lot of people actually know about electric vehicles. I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. Our old car was on its last legs and, the more I learnt about climate change, the more I wanted to embrace emissions-free motoring. After being given a long list of demands, The Car Company produced exactly the kind of Nissan Leaf we'd been after and the deal was done. Reactions from friends, family and strangers have been a mixture of fascination and mild suspicion. Top of people's minds have been the questions: how do you charge it and how far will it go on a full 'tank'? Six months after going electric, people are still surprised when I tell them that we charge our car one or two nights a week at home with a standard power point and that a full tank costs about $7. The tradition of filling up at gas stations combined with the arrival of publicly available fast chargers appears to have led many people to assume that EVs require something resembling a petrol pump. The truth is, unless you're going on a long trip, you may never need one. The next question, invariably, is about range. Here's how it basically works: the more you pay for an EV, the greater its range. In New Zealand you can buy an older Leaf for around $10,000 and get a range of maybe 90 kms or you can spend 15 times that much and get a Telsa that will go 600km. There is, of course, an increasing range of options in between ... Our Leaf will go around 185km which means we can take it to Lake Rotoiti and Golden Bay [ https://www.google.com/search?q=distance+Lake+Rotoiti+to+Golden+Bay+nz ] and, on those rare occasions we need to drive further, we can take our time and use the high speed charger network or borrow a friend's car or hire one with the money we save from not paying for petrol. I know it sounds strange but the whole never-paying-for-petrol thing and its significance takes a while to get your head around. In simple terms, the world of the internal combustion engine is one where pretty much everyone is addicted to oil and dependent on multinationals for their expensive and regular fix. Breaking that addiction feels good. Not having to watch that addiction eat up a significant chunk of your income also feels nice. I'll tell you what else feels good; driving an EV. Ask anyone who owns one and they'll tell you the same thing: EVs are fast, smooth and fun. In fact, they're so fast, smooth and fun, they leave most conventional cars feeling like wheezy, rattly, old tractors. Another common question people have is: how long does it take to charge an EV? To be honest, it's not something EV owners spend a lot of time thinking about. You plug them in at night and in the morning they are fully charged and good to go. If you do get caught short or you're on a long trip, you can always use those fast chargers. It takes 30 to 40 minutes to charge our car on them and it costs less than $10. Downsides? Honestly, not a lot if you get the right EV for your driving needs. The biggest is possibly that some of them aren't great for towing. In fact, we were told "no towing" when we bought ours; apparently the Leaf's engine doesn't like towing. Apart from that it's pretty much all smooth, virtually maintenance-free, sailing. So why isn't everyone driving an EV? Partly it's the fear of the unknown, partly it's cost and I suspect it's partly because there are still infinitely more reasons for the motoring and petroleum industries to keep pushing the old climate-killing, fossil fuel industry-enabling internal combustion engine than the proven electric alternative. When you consider the threat that EVs pose to the oil industry and much of the car industry's historic investment, it's no wonder the promotion of the vehicles is muted at best. I also can't help wondering whether vested interests might also be behind some of the negativity you hear about them. I'm not saying concerns about where the lithium that goes into the batteries comes from or how we deal with old batteries aren't valid but, the way I see it, the path that EVs offer has to be better than continuing to kill the planet by digging up and burning dinosaur juice. It also feels good to be part of the transition from an old polluting technology to a more environmentally friendly one. So, if you're thinking about a new car this year, I'd really encourage you consider an EV. [© stuff.co.nz] + https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/119233324/electric-motorcycle-moped-numbers-double-on-nz-roads-in-five-years Electric motorcycle, moped numbers double on NZ roads in five years Feb 09 2020 There are now 422 electric motorcycles and mopeds with an active vehicle licence on New Zealand roads ... e-moped ride-sharing service Kwikli launched in Auckland NZ in 2018 ... https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/s/m/l/k/v/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.1240x700.1yzl0s.png/1581194895637.jpg For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ {brucedp.neocities.org} -- Sent from: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/ _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
