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The couple, who have a property in Matakana, drive a Tesla S – one of only six in the country – and also have the older model Tesla roadster and a Nissan Leaf.
Their enthusiasm for electric vehicles, which Steve describes as “making perfect sense for New Zealand” has led them to set up a business and website this year, focused on rolling out a nationwide network of fast charging stations that anyone can use.
Normally, an electric car is charged overnight using power from the grid, as it sits in the garage. This is because electric vehicles have a charger built in that converts the AC power from the grid into DC power for the car’s battery. Due to size and weight constraints this onboard charger is limited in power so typically takes six hours to fully charge a car.
The Rapid DC Chargers are a powerful unit that allows electric vehicle owners to charge their car in around 25 minutes. They are a much larger version of the onboard charger, and convert high power 3-phase AC into very powerful DC current. This dramatically reduces the charge time.
“Free from the constraints imposed by the hazardous nature of traditional fossil-based transport fuels, charging stations can be placed in much more convenient locations like shopping malls and supermarkets where you would typically park for at least 20-30 minutes anyway,” Steve says.
The stations cost around $40,000 each and the plan is to start by placing them in the areas of highest electric vehicle ownership – Auckland and Wellington – then extend the network in a linear fashion along well-used routes such as State Highway 1.
The first one is being tested in Auckland, with two more due to come into the country next month and 20 more in August.
Users will be billed for using the stations based on the amount of power used.
Steve says because New Zealand’s power grid comes from almost 80 per cent renewable energy, electric vehicles are ideal.
“We spend $5.5 billion on petrol in this country each year, and the running cost of an electric vehicle is a quarter that of a petrol-driven engine,” Steve says. “There is virtually no maintenance on an electric vehicle as there are no spark plugs, no oil and very little that can wear out. Just brakes, tires and wipers!”
If you can’t afford the Tesla S, which costs around $110,000 and has a 400km range on a single charge, there is the Nissan Leaf (120km range), which Steve says can be bought on the second-hand market for around $20,000. He says on Trade Me they are selling around 50 of these a month.
Other car manufacturers, including BMW and Audi, have also introduced electric or hybrid models.
“We drive electric cars because they are environmentally friendly, and the way of the future, but they are also utterly silent and have a lot of torque at low speed which makes them very zippy when you take off from the lights.”
