EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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#1859316 6-Sep-2017 00:18

NZ's electric vehicle fleet, as of August 31st, now stands at 4,541 Battery electric or Pluggable hybrid EVs.

This is a record monthly increase of 331 over the previous month's total.

Of that total, 3,136 are battery electric and do not use any petrol.

Auckland has 2,299 of the combined EV total.
Wellington is second with 580.
Christchurch is 3rd with 505.

EVs are now 1.17% of monthly registrations as of the end of Q2 2017.

Just over 67% of EVs registered for the first time are used imports.

"Pure" EVs that don't use any petrol were 77.3% of the EVs registered in Q2 2017. The other 22.7% were pluggable hybrids.

Of the 3,136 purely battery electric cars registered in NZ, 2,038 of those are Nissan LEAFs, 225 are Teslas.

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Aredwood

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#1859318 6-Sep-2017 01:43

Linuxluver:

Low income people pay more for their power than anyone already. They try to use so little they end up paying more than guys like me who use 120kWh a day and pay 17c / kWh. Plus many on low incomes end up having to pre-pay for their power...and if they run out of money they get to enjoy your black-out scenario.....right now.

Low income people in Auckland can already get exactly the same rates as you, if they use enough power to go on a standard user plan. As for low user plans, by law they must give a lower overall cost assuming that you use less than 8000 units per year. If you find a standard user plan that gives a lower overall cost for less than 8000 units yearly usage, compared to a low user plan. That plan is illegal, and you should report it to the Electricity Authority. As for prepay power and the power getting cut off. If you are on a really low income, getting the power cut off is preferable to getting into a huge debt that you won't have any hope of repaying. And most of the power companies offer prompt payment discounts, which are actually late payment penalties. Pay your bill just 1 day late - and you pay 20% extra. How does that help if you are already struggling financially? For some people - prepay power is actually the best plan for them. And alot of the people on prepay power were actually given an ultimatum - either change to prepay or get permanently disconnected. I know someone who ran up $1500 in unpaid power bills. They went onto prepay with 1/3 of their summer topups and 1/10th of their winter topups going to clear the debt they owed.

This was in a household where some of the family members unfortunately left heaters running all the time, and didn't contribute enough to paying the power bill. Even after the debt was cleared, the account holder decided to stay on prepay, as that was the only way to force everyone to contribute to the power bill.

And how is a blackout due to exceeding demand comparable to running out of credit? As the demand blackout will self reset after 30 min. Compared to needing to find more money, and going out of your way to topup at short notice.

As for accusing me of strawmen, it is simple economics. The government already has revenue caps on all of the lines companies under the cost of supply model. Which means that overall, the cost to supply lines services to the whole country, in theory is already fair. But if you averaged it all out so everyone payed the same, of course some people will pay more, and others less than currently.

In Auckland, Vector says that areas of their network in established areas with low new housing growth, are actually seeing reductions in peak demand. And areas with large growth in the number of new connections are seeing large growth in peak demand. And Vector's entire network is growing in peak demand size. So Vector can easily meet the costs of meeting peak demand just by charging more for new connections. Which makes house prices more expensive. But Vector don't have to pay the cost of building more generation capacity, and they don't have to pay any costs for peak time carbon emissions either. They get externalised to other parts of the electricity sector. This in turn means that Aucklander's get to pay overall less than what they would otherwise have to for their power.

So to lower Auckland's power prices, and the power prices for the rest of NZ, money will be needed from somewhere else. Should the government give subsidies for everyone's power? (including rich people). Would that money instead be better spent on health, education, lowering carbon emissions, reducing water pollution, ending homelessness etc? (Or any other government spending program that you think is worthwhile).

The 93 reforms were definitely bad for the power sector, power prices, and most of all for consumers. As before then, the lines companies set strict rules for load management, which was how they kept their costs low, and therefore kept power cheap.

If that system still existed today, almost certainly you would have to ask for permission to charge an EV at home. As EV charging gives a big increase to both baseload and peak demand. An extremely common rule was if you had electric hot water, it must be connected to load management. Typically if you has underfloor heating or electric spa heating - again must be on load management. Often those rules were very rigid and there would be all sorts of other restrictions. If you didn't comply, they would disconnect your power. And imagine how much the equivalent of a Tesla battery would have cost in the 1980s. And look up solar panel prices then as well.

I have already said in other threads why the current system is broken, and needs to be reformed. And under the old system, I can't see how lots of different tiny power boards. Could possibly have offered the exact same pricing no matter where in NZ you happened to be.

Just because something used to work, back when NZ was still a semi closed economy. (Parallel importing was still illegal in 93, and there were still large import tariffs on cars back then as well). Does not mean that it would work again today. The current system just needs to be tweaked so that no consumers are either getting subsidies. Or having to pay subsidies to other consumers. This is so you can decide how much you want to pay. Both for usage and capacity. As each person puts a different economic value on both the cost of capacity, and the per unit cost of power.

Imagine if I could start a power company that was able to offer really cheap power, in exchange for only offering low capacity to consumers. Say only 10c per unit including GST and all other fees. With the only catch being that your capacity is limited to 2.5KW (slightly more than 1 power point). You can run the heater, a couple of lights, and your TV. You need to switch off the heater while you are cooking, and to use the clothes dryer. Sure, some people would hate living like this. But for alot of low income people, it would be a massive improvement to their quality of life. As they can now afford to have a heater running all night during winter. And if it was possible to start such a power company, Im sure I would get lots of customers.

As for helping low income consumers - far better to give them targeted assistance. Instead of giving everyone a government subsidy. Going back to your river example - giving a flat subsidy is the equivalent of giving every single person a life raft. Even if they are not at risk of falling into the river, and even if they already own a life raft. And then increasing taxes or prices, as life rafts cost money to make. Far better for low income people to be given access to subsidies life rafts. And for rich people to decide for themselves if they want to spend money on buying their own life raft, or instead spend it on things to make sure that they don't fall into the river in the first place.

And the circuit breaker in your switchboard - sure you can reset yourself. But it is still a hard limit to the amount of capacity you can use. And if it trips, you will then suffer a self inflicted blackout as you tried to exceed the amount of capacity that you paid for. (Or the previous owner paid for if it wasn't you who paid for that switchboard or circuit breaker to be installed)

Aredwood

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#1859319 6-Sep-2017 01:52

It is not common for houses in Auckland to have a single circuit breaker installed. That controls load to the entire house. If it was installed while you were already living there, what was the reason for installing it?

hamish225

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#1859332 6-Sep-2017 06:32

Aredwood:
It is not common for houses in Auckland to have a single circuit breaker installed. That controls load to the entire house. If it was installed while you were already living there, what was the reason for installing it?

I had an electrician here yesterday and we talked about those, they're the standard for all new installs now, so if you live in an older house then you won't have one, our house is 20 years old and doesn't have one, all it has is a main isolation switch and circuit breakers

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

floydbloke

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#1861039 8-Sep-2017 16:47

More benefits for some EV owners:

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/media-releases/green-light-for-auckland-electric-vehicle-bypass-lane-trial/

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

paulchinnz

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#1861078 8-Sep-2017 19:57

Anyone else get snail mail from NZTA with EV identification sticker?

ech3lon

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#1861102 8-Sep-2017 22:08

Yeah, just got them today.
Will stick the spiffy reflective stickers tomorrow.

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RUKI

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#1861129 9-Sep-2017 07:12

See you folks today at Expo.

Toyota / Lexus Hybrid and EV Battery Expert Battery Test & Repair

Linuxluver

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#1861610 10-Sep-2017 00:31

I went to the EV World expo at the Vodafone Events Centre in Manurewa (south Auckland) today.

I thought I'd be there for an hour or two, but ended up staying from 9am to about 5pm.

They set a new NZ record for the number of EVs gathered in the same place: 155.

The expo is on tomorrow (Sunday) as well. It's well worth going. There are people selling chargers of all kinds, EVs of all kinds - including a big, 11-seater van (LDV) and a ute - "Volta" - and small utility vehicles, e-bikes and electric scooters.

You can also take a ride in an EV if you never some. Or you can drive one yourself. GVI and others ave brought cars along for anyone to have a spin around the block in.

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afe66

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#1861860 10-Sep-2017 15:06

Dunedins Big EV Day out record attempt...

135 !!

Not bad, Auckland set the record with 155?!

Linuxluver

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#1861861 10-Sep-2017 15:15

afe66:

Dunedins Big EV Day out record attempt...

135 !!

Not bad, Auckland set the record with 155?!

A

Yeah......but 135 for Dunedin is amazing!

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Linuxluver

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#1861865 10-Sep-2017 15:19

paulchinnz:

Anyone else get snail mail from NZTA with EV identification sticker?

I got mine. Most of the locations aren't places I use, but I suppose I'll put it on the car anyway.

I'm not a fan of obvious special privileges like this. OK....charge me less for a thing.....but don't require me to jump the queue on the highway because I'm "special".

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PhantomNVD

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#1861887 10-Sep-2017 16:49

I got in about 1:30 met @Ruki who flashed my dash to English and stayed till 5 too, was a great event and some super speakers came too. (Did you see me with the two young boys @Linuxlover?)

I think there were many more than 155 EVs and wished they counted at the gate, or even at the registration desk, as I’m pretty sure mine wasn’t even counted as I’d only pulled in 15 mins before they announced the total... which they reported it as “Mr X just ran around madly counting and got to 155” so in the rubbish weather, quite likely missed at leas 20+ more?

Fun time anyway!

I did have a little chuckle when one of the speakers who came up from Hamilton had made a point about how he’d never had to queue and then met him at Takanini where he wanted to use the CHaDeMO I was plugged into already 😁
(I had nearly 80% and could make it home from there, so let him go anyway)

paulchinnz

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#1861908 10-Sep-2017 17:40

@linuxluver - I'm with you re the privileges, but only because I'd like the sort of 'charge me less' incentives for buying an EV that Europe/US have.

(but given my perception that there're increasingly beggars on the streets, subsidising car sales is low on my list of priorities for public money)

PhantomNVD

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#1862348 11-Sep-2017 14:10

How about this for ‘privilaged’ Privileges?

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/jalopnik.com/teslas-hurricane-irma-update-taps-into-our-deepest-fear-1803081731/amp

Basically a discussion about how Tesla remotely unlocked the greater range of sim Florida owners vehicles (free!) to help them escape the hurricane, but without necessarily asking them...

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