Simeon Brown says he likes the performance of electric vehicles he’s driven, like the Tesla Y. He likes the technology. He likes the acceleration.
It wouldn’t quite be correct to say he’s ‘stepping on the gas’ on the rollout of the National Party’s promised 10,000 public chargers; that language no longer works in an era of decarbonisation. But he wants to make progress this year.
He’s described his priorities for the new chargers, in reply to calls for the Government to strengthen the electricity lines network alongside its commitment to more public chargers.
Yesterday at Newsroom, the chief executives of lines company Vector, Holiday Parks NZ, and the country’s biggest charging company ChargeNet challenged ministers to consider the need to upgrade lines to support the added demand.
National has proposed using the same industry co-investment model with which previous governments rolled out ultra-fast broadband. But as part of its coalition deal with Act, it’s agreed to a robust cost benefit analysis.
The previous government supported new chargers through grants from EECA, the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority. Companies like ChargeNet say they’ve brought $3 to $4 of private money to the table for every dollar of public money spent.
But National’s language suggests it will expect a greater return on its investment, rather than just handing out no-strings-attached grants.
Brown holds both the transport and energy portfolios. He says the coalition Government is committed to “supercharging New Zealand’s electric vehicle infrastructure” with the rollout of 10,000 public EV chargers across the country by 2030.
“It is my expectation that the rollout of these 10,000 public EV chargers will take into account the placement of existing charging infrastructure, traffic flows, and any projections of increased range of next generation EVs,” he tells Newsroom.
Brown says the details of how this network will be delivered are still being determined.
“I have previously driven several EVs and was impressed by the performance, technology, and acceleration,” he adds.
“One of the biggest factors that puts people off buying an EV is range anxiety. People weighing up whether to buy an are often worried they might not be able to reach where they want to go, given the vehicle’s battery capacity.
“The Government’s commitment to rolling out 10,000 public EV chargers is about addressing this concern for those who are considering buying an EV.”
In the Speech from the Throne on December 6, the new Government acknowledged the significant infrastructure deficit, and said the country needed to improve the way it funds, procures and maintains infrastructure.
It would set up a National Infrastructure Agency, to coordinate government funding, connect domestic and offshore investors with New Zealand infrastructure projects, and improve funding, procurement and delivery.
It plans to investigate the use of private finance to accelerate the construction of its 13 new Roads of National Significance, as well as a four-lane highway alternative for the Brynderwyns in Northland.
That will be welcomed by the likes of ChargeNet, whose chief executive Danusia Wypych says there is plenty of private money looking for opportunities to invest in public charging.
“From our perspective, we see that there is private capital that wants to participate in building these networks,” Wypych says. “We think that’s the best option. Good, strong, clear contracts that deliver on the Government’s needs and outcomes, in partnership with the private sector.”
Many of ChargeNet’s sites take well beyond typical three-year private equity horizons to pay back their initial capital investment – and that’s a challenge as New Zealand tries to roll out public chargers to smaller communities.
That’s why ChargeNet and Vector believe the Government needs to come to the table to improve charging and power network capacity for small communities – essentially, outside the major cities and off State Highway 1.
I agree that we need continued expansion of the public EV charging network. There are still major gaps and bottlenecks with on-the-road charging that cause some EV owners to get frustrated and annoyed and some give up on doing any road trips in their EV. I love my EVs because they are quiet, smooth, cheap to run if you charge on night rates, cheap to maintain and I love the instant acceleration. It is a small thing I can do to reduce my carbon footprint and reduce our dependence on imported oil. We just need to install enough public charging infrastructure to make EV ownership easy and trouble free.
Expanding the EV charging network and associated power supplies are necessary initiatives, but Government needs to think very carefully how it moves from a sweeping “10,000 new chargers” election promise to a soundly based investment in effective electrified transport.
For starters it must include the electrification of the heavy transport fleet, but that has barely been mentioned. With a need for the likes of multiple 1 MW chargers, and with futureproofing of supply lines impeded by “capacity charges” (based on cable size rather than actual power usage), this badly needs suitable policy settings.
Government should also take heed of the “typical three-year private equity horizons” mentioned in the article, when we are building the foundation of an energy system that needs to serve us well decades into the future. That also has a bearing on the cost of charging at public chargers – currently high enough to handicap, especially, lower-end second hand EVs, and even more so with the imminent introduction of EV road user charges.
For example a typical 80c/kWh charging cost is likely three to six times the price of charging at home. ChargeNet know better than most the difficulty of operating in this emerging field, but energy is the lifeblood of our economy and Government must ensure that short term private returns are not allowed to dominate this critical sector.
It’s also worth noting that Government says it’s keen on a large EV fleet but its policy settings are now pretty well the reverse of Norway, the stand-out country in EV uptake. In spite of a haphazard approach to chargers, over 80% of Norway‘s car purchases are EVs thanks to widespread incentives. In NZ we are now in the process of scrapping the incentives and focussing on the charging infrastructure…
“For example a typical 80c/kWh charging cost is likely three to six times the price of charging at home. ”
Most EV owners either search out TOU electricity supply plans with low night/off-peak rates, if not generous solar FITs, that are often below 20c/kWh so the 80-85c/kWh rates of DCHC facilities can result in them being 5x the rate of home charging.
In my own case the introduction of RUCs will result in our Polestar2 costing the same to run per km as an equivalent petrol fueled car when we charge at DCHC rates.
Another looming issue is that the FET basic for RUC taxation of petrol cars equates to a distance RUC equivalency to 7.6c/km for vehicles that consume 9.5L/100km. The NACT coalition promise of petrol vehicles being levied distance RUCs in the future in conjunction with a removal of FET from the price of petrol will result in an incentive towards high fuel consumption vehicles if this taxation change is done in isolation. It will cost owners of vehicles that consume petrol at >9.5L/100km less to drive their vehicles than it does currently, with this price reduction increasing as consumption rate does.
Any disincentive to high consumption due to petrol price will be diluted and some form of increased taxation (i.e. carbon, ETS) will need to be levied in order to counter this. The policies so far rolled out by the coalition government have been dismal in regards to emissions target intentions so will we really see such a U-turn under their watch?