Fear of missing out on cheaper running costs has sent EV registrations soaring four-fold \u2013 and now dealers are selling cars that haven\u2019t even left Japan, writes Catherine McGregor in today\u2019s excerpt from The Bulletin.<\/p>\n
To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday,\u00a0sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n The great EV rush<\/p>\n New Zealand\u2019s fuel crisis has triggered an EV buying surge not seen since the clean car discount era.\u00a0As RNZ\u2019s Kate Newton reports<\/a>, monthly registrations of full battery EVs jumped nearly four-fold in March, from an average of 800 a month to 3,100. EV dealer Hayden Johnston described the mood as pure fomo: buyers had gone from carefully researching models to \u201cWhat EVs have you got? OK, we\u2019ll buy it.\u201d When RNZ spoke to Johnston last week, his company had sold through its existing cars, sold the consignment that arrived the previous week, and was now selling stock still on its way, not due in New Zealand until May or later given shipping constraints.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Driven Car Guide editor David Linklater<\/a>, whose headline \u201cSo you want to panic-buy an EV?\u201d sums up the situation pretty nicely, urges prospective buyers to do the sums before rushing in: for average drivers, the fuel crisis may add an extra $20 or so to their weekly fuel bill, while buying an EV means thousands in upfront capital costs.<\/p>\n A challenge to hybrid dominance<\/p>\n For years, hybrids have been New Zealand\u2019s dominant low-emissions option thanks to their cheaper upfront cost, petrol-backed familiarity and freedom from range anxiety.\u00a0Writing in The Press<\/a>\u00a0(paywalled), Blayne Slabbert says the fuel shock is testing that loyalty, with pure EV registrations up 174% between the first and last weeks of March. But hybrids haven\u2019t surrendered the field. They carry lower road user charges than EVs, and Drive Electric chair Kirsten Corson notes that \u201cthe upfront cost is still the biggest barrier\u201d to full EV adoption.<\/p>\n Yet the hybrid\u2019s core compromise \u2013 it still runs on petrol \u2013 is exactly the problem the past few weeks have highlighted, Slabbert writes. That compromise leaves New Zealand \u201cexposed to the global fuel shocks now hitting motorists at the pump \u2013 not just for the current crisis, but for years to come if today\u2019s new vehicles remain in the fleet for a decade or more\u201d.<\/p>\n The EV-hybrid price gap is also narrowing, thanks to the influx of cheaper Chinese EV brands: BYD\u2019s Atto 1 starts at $30,000, for example, below a Toyota Corolla Hatch GX Hybrid at just under $38,000.<\/p>\n The psychic labour of EV ownership<\/p>\n For those already driving EVs, the crisis has brought quiet vindication \u2013 with a few caveats.\u00a0Writing in The Spinoff<\/a>, Henry Oliver charts seven years with a Nissan Leaf, from the early days when he rarely queued for a charger, through a disastrous road trip to Ohakune where, after cascading failures at charging stops, he arrived \u201chours late, driving slowly through the dark to conserve what little battery remained\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPlanning a long drive in an EV is a special kind of psychic labour,\u201d he writes. \u201cYou begin with a map of charging stations, like a medieval pilgrim plotting monasteries.\u201d Battery degradation eventually cut his range to 60km, before a $4,000 second-hand battery replacement brought it back to a higher range than the car had when new. Now, as petrol approaches $4 a litre, his Leaf \u201cfeels like a modest form of independence, even if only in increments of 145km\u201d.<\/p>\n More chargers, but will they be enough?<\/p>\n Oliver\u2019s chronic range anxiety points to the greatest structural obstacle to widespread EV uptake: a lack of public chargers, in some areas at least. The government has announced a $50 million interest-free loan scheme for ChargeNet and Meridian Energy, which will invest a further $60 million to lift the national network from 1,800 to around 4,500 charge points \u2013 still less than halfway to the government\u2019s target of 10,000 chargers by 2030.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n