EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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3918 posts

Uber Geek

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#3359377 1-Apr-2025 08:56

188 kWh available this morning at springs Junction.

https://zero.meridianenergy.co.nz/sj

Either a few big batteries EV's have charged early this morning, or the capacity available in the 11pm to 4am BESS charge window is not enough to fully charge the 320 kWh pack.

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boosacnoodle

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Ultimate Geek

#3359420 1-Apr-2025 10:59

And in true Meridian Zero fashion - the Springs Junction charger faulted within just two hours of going live.

I genuinely don't know why Meridian is in the EV charging business:

Constant issues trying to activate their AC chargers to the point that I gave up, despite them giving me six months free access as part of a promotion.
They don't have integrated billing so that you get everything one bill - instead you receive separate invoices for each charging session.
There is no discount for Meridian customers to use them - why would I instead opt to use an inferior (slower) AC charging network?
They don't have RFID fobs for customers - but their staff can use them for fleet vehicles. Explain that one.
Their DC chargers (which are few and far between) are extraordinarily unreliable. In Oxford, the only charger in town has a 1.1 PlugShare rating and, last I checked, had been broken for many, many months.

CYaBro

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#3360824 4-Apr-2025 16:34

Just had an email that ChargeNet are putting up their prices.

"On Wednesday 9 April 2025, pricing at all ChargeNet-owned chargers will increase by $0.05 per kWh, including GST."

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Technofreak

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#3360863 4-Apr-2025 19:15

boosacnoodle:

And in true Meridian Zero fashion - the Springs Junction charger faulted within just two hours of going live.

I genuinely don't know why Meridian is in the EV charging business:

Constant issues trying to activate their AC chargers to the point that I gave up, despite them giving me six months free access as part of a promotion.
They don't have integrated billing so that you get everything one bill - instead you receive separate invoices for each charging session.
There is no discount for Meridian customers to use them - why would I instead opt to use an inferior (slower) AC charging network?
They don't have RFID fobs for customers - but their staff can use them for fleet vehicles. Explain that one.
Their DC chargers (which are few and far between) are extraordinarily unreliable. In Oxford, the only charger in town has a 1.1 PlugShare rating and, last I checked, had been broken for many, many months.

That indicates to me they're not making enough money off these chargers . If they were these issues would be fixed promptly.

Are they only installing theses because they feel obliged to?

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HarmLessSolutions

951 posts

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#3360925 5-Apr-2025 10:09

It's got to be a tricky market model. In our case 2 EVs with only one that travels outside battery range from home and that's only rarely, so well over 95% of our charging is done at home (mostly from solar). When we do venture outside the province we have up to 6 DC charging providers to choose from and that choice is usually based on what amenities are available at our charging opportunity.

In comparison to fossil fuel fills a recharge is of a much lower value so the returns for charging infrastructure will be much lower and slower and 'add on' spending such as for meals is usually provided by nearby businesses rather than the DC network provider. Also the need for motoring consumables is virtually non-existant so no opportunity in that regard. Perhaps the situation will change if we see similar developments to those offered by Gridserve in the UK but our EV uptake and usage is much different to that of more populous countries so I can't see that occurring in NZ any time soon.

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SaltyNZ

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2degrees

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#3360977 5-Apr-2025 14:48

Must be getting some use though; it's down to 73kWh at the time of writing.

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Scott3

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#3360999 5-Apr-2025 17:43

Technofreak:

That indicates to me they're [Meridian Zero] not making enough money off these chargers . If they were these issues would be fixed promptly.

Are they only installing theses because they feel obliged to?

I can't comment on other Meridian Zero chargers, but in the case of Springs Junction, As a casual observer

Based on the night of the 31st March, the state of charge of the battery bank went up 30kWh. Lets be Generous and assume somebody charged 30 kWh between my sample period's..., that means a max of 60 kWh of charging per day . at $1+ GST, That's a max of $60+ GST revenue pre day. I think it is a fair assumption this is not enough for a charger to be profitable.

And as such I am super Greatfull for Meridian for closing this gap in the EV charging Network as a somewhat charitable endeavor.

Should note they have 35% market share for generation and 14% market share for retail in NZ electricity space. In general anything that encourages more electricity consumption (such as EV update) is good for them as a company. So there is potential closing a few key gaps in the NZ (despite being independently unprofitable) makes sense for them as a company.

Just a pity about the reliability stuff. Running into an unavailable charging station (especially when it is the only one in town) the only is extremely detrimental to the EV ownership.

SaltyNZ:

Must be getting some use though; it's down to 73kWh at the time of writing.

64 kWh now.

https://zero.meridianenergy.co.nz/sj

Seems the average daily use is less than the average daily charging, so we are seeing a slow decline in overall state of charge day as the day's go by.

We are now at a point where a single big battery EV (100 kWh EV9 / Mach-e, 109 kWh BMW iX xDrive 50 etc), is capable of draining the entire charger... (Perhaps they are towing something big, so simply don't realize this is an expensive & capacity-limited charger they ideally would skip over). Means that every body who travels this route in and EV which needs a charge stop here is carrying the risk of the charger being flat (on top of the risk of one of the two chargers having an intermittent fault at the moment).

RunningMan

8879 posts

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#3363097 11-Apr-2025 21:28

fastbike

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#3363100 11-Apr-2025 21:35

Old news ?

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freitasm

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Geekzone

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#3367975 27-Apr-2025 15:11

Press release:

Accelerating the roll-out of public EV chargers

The Government is updating the way it co-invests in public electric vehicle (EV) chargers with the private sector to accelerate the delivery of EV chargers across New Zealand, Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Energy Minister Simon Watts say.

“New Zealand needs more EV chargers. We have fewer public chargers per EV than many other countries in the OECD, and we know that this is a barrier to Kiwis purchasing EVs,” Mr Bishop says.

“People buying an EV need confidence that they can charge where and when they need to on a comprehensive public network.

“The number of EV charge points (as of 31 December 2024) is 1,378 – around one for every 84 EVs (battery electric and plug in hybrid). The Government is targeting 10,000 by 2030, so that there will be one public charge point to around 40 EVs. This will remove people’s ‘range anxiety’ and make owning an EV as easy as possible.

“The Government will therefore utilise the highly successful Ultra-Fast Broadband model to accelerate the roll-out of EV chargers. Under the status quo, the private sector are reluctant to invest in charging infrastructure until there’s sufficient demand, but demand for charging won’t grow until the purchase of EVs stops being hampered by a lack of public charging. This chicken-and-egg situation is hampering the roll-out and justifies government action.

“Since 2016, government investment in EV chargers has consisted of direct grants. This made sense when the market for public EV charging was being established. This model is now outdated, with EVs now making up over 2 per cent of the light vehicle fleet, and expected to make up around 11 per cent by 2030. A range of charge point operators have now also entered the market.

“The Government is moving to a more sophisticated, commercial procurement model. We have set aside up to $68.5 million in currently held grant funding, to provide concessionary loans to private operators to co-invest in public EV charging infrastructure. Loans will be quicker to implement and will help achieve the Government’s objectives with less complexity, cost and risk.

“Concessionary loans will bring forward private investment in public EV charging infrastructure by lowering the cost of capital. They will also provide better value for money by maximising private sector investment while keeping the taxpayers’ contribution to a minimum.

“Loans will be awarded through contestable co-investment rounds, and applications will be open to proposals to establish portfolios of public EV charging sites (i.e. multiple charging locations). This is the best way to support scaled-up development and to maximise competitive tension between providers.

“Giving effect to commitments made on the National-Act Coalition agreement, this competitive tension will help ensure public investment flows to proposals delivering the best value-for-money. A cost benefit analysis will also be applied at the point loan applications are assessed, with a successful applicant having demonstrated that the benefits to New Zealand of its project outweigh the costs.”

Mr Watts says that EVs make a huge amount of sense for New Zealand.

“With our bountiful renewable energy resources EVs are a winner for New Zealand. Kiwis charging their EVs are essentially filling their cars with predominantly water, wind, and geothermal energy – rather than fossil fuels – due to our high level of renewable energy.

“There are real benefits to owning an EV. Not only does it support our economic and climate goals, but it also delivers long-term benefits to users by helping keep running costs low. This Government is focused on growing the economy so Kiwis can get ahead.

“By giving people more options to reduce everyday expenses like transport, we’re helping households stay ahead and build a more sustainable future. By co-investing to accelerate public EV infrastructure ahead of demand, we will give more Kiwis the confidence to go electric.”

The new EV charging initiative will be administered by National Infrastructure Funding and Financing (NIFFCo), the successor organisation to Crown Infrastructure Partners (which delivered Ultra-Fast Broadband). EECA will provide assistance as required.

Editor’s notes

Increasing the number of chargers to support rapid EV uptake will help to reduce New Zealand’s light road transport emissions. An EV used in New Zealand emits at least 60 percent fewer emissions over its full life cycle than do petrol vehicles.
The concessionary loans will offer up to 50 percent of project costs, have a zero percent interest rate, and a maximum tenure of 13 years. The loans will be awarded through a contestable co-investment bid process.
Applications will be assessed against value-for-money criteria to ensure loans are awarded to projects of greatest benefit and that New Zealand’s EV charging network grows at pace. A Request for Proposals (RFP) for interested parties is expected to be released shortly.
Consumer monitoring by EECA consistently shows that some of the main perceived disadvantages of EVs include that the driving range is not suitable for long distance travel, and that there are not enough public chargers available. Increasing the availability of public charging infrastructure gives drivers the confidence to switch to an electric vehicle. See EECA’s Transport Monitor: https://www.eeca.govt.nz/assets/EECA-Transport-Monitor-Mar-Jun-2024.pdf

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Dingbatt

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#3367987 27-Apr-2025 15:43

That’s great.

Meantime my electricity provider has just hiked my daily charge by 18% and my per unit cost by 15%.

I wonder how much coal we’ll burn to meet electricity demand this winter?

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HarmLessSolutions

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#3368001 27-Apr-2025 16:23

That strategy would carry so much more relevance if accompanied by incentivisation of rooftop solar. As per the preceeding post one of the leading criticisms of EV adoption is the added demand they will place on our national generation capacity. If EV owners were able to gain government assistance to install their own generation, in the form of solar, that argument is nullified.

We have 2 EVs that derive >95% of their charging from our own solar generation. That not only reduces our grid demand significantly but also makes the economics of investing in solar significantly better due the the portion of our generation that we can consume 'behind the meter'. We are also in the process of installing additional solar capacity which will result in us being net generation positive on an annual basis while also putting us in a position to use one of our EVs in a V2G capacity, and potentially also going off grid in due course. The current grid model incentivises selfish consumption of home solar generation to the detriment of public benefit. Moves towards government support of the EV + PV model is much needed if NZ is remotely serious about EV adoption and emissions reduction.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

PolicyGuy

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#3368002 27-Apr-2025 16:45

freitasm:

Press release:

Accelerating the roll-out of public EV chargers

The Government is updating the way it co-invests in public electric vehicle (EV) chargers with the private sector to accelerate the delivery of EV chargers across New Zealand, Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Energy Minister Simon Watts say.

...

“The Government is moving to a more sophisticated, commercial procurement model. We have set aside up to $68.5 million in currently held grant funding, to provide concessionary loans to private operators to co-invest in public EV charging infrastructure. Loans will be quicker to implement and will help achieve the Government’s objectives with less complexity, cost and risk."

Complete PR bollix

The government is moving from a model where it gave people money to put in EV chargers to a model where it lends maybe the same people the same money to put in EV chargers.
This is a straight money saving measure: instead of incurring expenditure they will create a loan - financial asset.

The government has a problem: it promised 10,000 EV chargers by 2030 up from less than 1,500 now, but there is no money in the foreseeable budgets to pay for 1,700 new ones every single year from now to then. Even if a single charging station with four outlets is counted as four chargers, that's 450 (@ 4 chargers per site) to 900 (@ 2 chargers per site) new charging stations at maybe $50k each.
The government's answer to this nasty problem: we'll announce a little accounting magic and hope nobody notices.

Bah humbug

dafman

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#3368008 27-Apr-2025 17:29

PolicyGuy:

Complete PR bollix

The government is moving from a model where it gave people money to put in EV chargers to a model where it lends maybe the same people the same money to put in EV chargers.
This is a straight money saving measure: instead of incurring expenditure they will create a loan - financial asset.

Bah humbug

Happy to hear it’s not another EV handout. Our hospitals need it more.

HarmLessSolutions

951 posts

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#3368010 27-Apr-2025 17:33

PolicyGuy:

Complete PR bollix

The government is moving from a model where it gave people money to put in EV chargers to a model where it lends maybe the same people the same money to put in EV chargers.
This is a straight money saving measure: instead of incurring expenditure they will create a loan - financial asset.

The government has a problem: it promised 10,000 EV chargers by 2030 up from less than 1,500 now, but there is no money in the foreseeable budgets to pay for 1,700 new ones every single year from now to then. Even if a single charging station with four outlets is counted as four chargers, that's 450 (@ 4 chargers per site) to 900 (@ 2 chargers per site) new charging stations at maybe $50k each.
The government's answer to this nasty problem: we'll announce a little accounting magic and hope nobody notices.

Bah humbug

There's also the problem of grid infrastructure capacity (i.e. the existing cables and componentry aren't big enough to supply the current required). The lines companies are well aware of this situation and the solution is far from cheap or easily upgraded. I guess someone from the Beehive has had an approach from the guys that actually own and maintain the supply networks educating them about the mechanics of installing DC chargers.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

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