Electric vehicles clocking up in Top of the South
Tasman resident Peter Hong says owning an EV had become a “no-brainer”. Photo: Gordon Preece.
Local drivers who have converted to electric vehicles say the minimal impact on their finances and the environment prompted them to press the start button.
Tasman resident Peter Hong, who shifted to the area from Canberra with his wife in 2017, has owned a Kia EV6 since August last year, having previously driven a Volkswagen Touareg with a diesel engine.
He says, while he misses the “throb” of a V8, his new EV is cost-effective to operate and it has a minimal environmental impact.
“We came here on the basis that the climate was kinder than Canberra… it’s a beautiful country, so our thinking was that we should minimise anything that harms the climate or the landscape that we’ve come to enjoy,” he says.
“Every drop of fuel that we would buy in New Zealand, whether it’s diesel or petrol, is imported, so what we have to learn as a nation is everything you import, adds to the national deficit.
“The second part was the numbers actually make sense… two weeks ago we had our first service on the Kia and I’m used to somewhere between $900 and $1500 service bills. It cost $72.90 to service the Kia.”
EVDB, which is a data-driven website combining insights from real-world experience in EV ownership, says the market share of electric vehicle registrations in the Nelson and Tasman region are above the national average.
“In 2022, market share of electric vehicle registrations was 11.4 per cent of all light vehicles, this has increased to 13.8 per cent in 2023 so far,” a spokesperson says.
“This is above the national average market share which is currently 11.6 per cent. However, when we drill down into new car registrations, the share is even higher, 29 per cent.
“This means, when buyers purchased a new car almost one in three were choosing either a battery electric vehicle, or plug-in hybrid. Again, this is well above the national average of 22 per cent.”
EVDB says the reasons for the gaining electric vehicle sales was “hard to tell”, but based on its figures of the more than 800 new passenger cars registered this year, there was a “willingness” from EV purchasers to embrace newer, lower-emission vehicle technology.
“In the Nelson and Tasman region, that’s ahead of other parts of the country,” it says.
Peter says he and his wife mostly use their Kia EV6 for short trips around their local area and the average cost to recharge it is only two dollars, which is made possible by their solar panels.
He says improved infrastructure could accelerate EV converter numbers.
“We hear a lot about infrastructure in the South Island, it takes forever to get a charger built and then they’re very unreliable… it seems to take one or two weeks before something that’s gone wrong is repaired… they need to get their act together, in my opinion,” he says.
Episode 14 - What’s holding Nelson back? — The Nelson Pod
“I think it’s also a transition period from people having that fear of buying an electric vehicle and not getting enough mileage.
“Not being able to travel to Blenheim, for example, and then get back home on a single charge because if they get to Blenheim and the public charger is down, what do they do to get home?”
Richmond resident Kevin Parkes has also discovered the economic benefits since purchasing a second-hand Tesla Model 3 about five months ago. He says his new electric vehicle is parked alongside his XF Jaguar.
“I think it cost me about six dollars a week to run [the Tesla Model 3] back and forwards to work and then a bit of running around the weekend.”