Well, it was a wee bit sudden — but I’m just back from four days up at the paradise shown in the image above. My father-in-law now lives up there at Tauranga Bay. It’s about a 4-hour straight shot drive from here in Auckland, but beautiful almost all the way. We had planned to perhaps go up sometime over this break, but ‘sometime over this break’ turned into ‘tomorrow’ really quickly!
We went up New Year’s day and the traffic was excellent too — with most people, I suppose, already away on their break.
I drove the EV up and I have to admit — I was a little concerned by the distance. It’s about 300km (~186 miles) away and the 2019 Nissan Leaf (40kWHr battery) has an on-paper range of about 248km (with aircon etc running). I’ve found that real-world driving, particularly at highway speeds makes that distance considerably shorter. On a trip we did south, for instance, we only reached Cambridge (~150km / 93miles) before needing to recharge.
That trip south was a fair while ago now though and I’ve since learnt to drive it a lot more efficiently. To the point of getting almost the dash-readout distance in reality. I must’ve been really heavy-footed on our trip south. So while our planned route included 2 stops for charging heading North, I think we could have comfortably done it in one.
On the way back I didn’t get to test this theory out as there were a number of places we wanted to stop anyway, and it turned out most of them actually had EV charging facilities which was a pleasant surprise. And while I think we could’ve done it in just one charge stop… I mean… If the chargers are there and we were stopped anyway…
Maybe next time!
In any case, back now! Ideally would’ve done a ‘we’re going on holiday now’ post before leaving — but I didn’t even get to finish replying to comments. (Sorry Bhagpuss! I have since added a number of the mentioned names to my Goodreads though!) Once I got up there I was pretty effectively off-the-grid so to speak. No internet, no cellphone coverage even. It was surprisingly refreshing to disconnect so fully for a few days.
But… still glad to be back home again, too.
I also caught way too much sun up there too. There was no amount of sunblock going to protect me from that, and it didn’t. So AC on the arms is definitely the order of the day. And aloe gel.
Anywho, now that I’m back home? Games ahoy!
It’s amazing that you have so many charging stations in NZ. I’m not sure I’ve ever even SEEN a charging station here in the southern US. I’m sure they are out there somewhere but not common enough that you just notice them without looking.
They are spread pretty well I must say, something I was pleasantly surprised to find even on the journey north. It does of course depend on the route you take — if you wander off the main routes they vanish, but we were still able to wander home on the more scenic ‘old’ highway and made it home on 50% charge, so it isn’t terrible by any stretch.
Each charging facility though is generally a one charger / two park setup. So I imagine as EVs become more common, the likelihood of waiting your turn is going to come up and be an issue. I don’t mind waiting 20-40 minutes for a charge, but if you were to turn up with both parks full and be waiting your turn in that situation it becomes another story.
That said, we drove home at the end of the statutory holiday for NY and I expected it would be a lot worse. We only had to wait once, and it was for the tail end of another car that was almost done when we got there.
So the short of it is, is, yes! Right now it’s pretty good in NZ. Distribution is there and demand isn’t too high. But guess will need to watch this space as we go!