WyleECoyoteNZ:
A couple of my thoughts around EV's
1) If you take a city like Wellington, and in particular suburbs like Mt Victoria, Mt Cook, Newtown and Thorndon, each day down any residential street you'll see cars parked on the side of the road. Chances are that the majority of those cars parked will belong to the residents living near by. If they car is a conventional ICE powered vehicle, if they need to fill up they can do so at there choice of service station. Now if these people were to buy an EV, charging it becomes rather difficult. Maybe they are lucky enough to have a garage, but a lot won't be. This type of scenario won't be restricted to just Wellington, but will be common across most NZ cities.
2) A third of NZer's don't own there own home. For those that rent, maybe they're lucky enough to have a garage or maybe they don't. Even if they do have a garage, that's no guarantee that's if fit for purpose to be able to charge an EV. I know from personal experience that a house I've rented had a garage, but that garage was not fit for purpose for charging an EV
These are definitely valid issues, and they are in no way restricted to NZ. But that's why Wellington city council is trialing EV charging zones.
3) The argument around owning an EV, then hiring a ICE for the traditional kiwi Christmas road trip. Sounds good in theory, but how many would actually do this in practice? My guess would be not many. Chances are that if you've saved X dollars a week\fortnight\month on fuel by driving a EV, then that money saved is simply re purposed somewhere else in the household budget.
Well, that's true too. In practice I will drive my EV, despite it being "impossible" to take on a holiday. I'm on holiday: I don't have a deadline breathing down my neck. I can afford the time to enjoy the trip as opposed to silently raging that I can't get there one second faster.