The case for energy loans: read our latest explainer
Meet Frankie, “the ute that looks like a Ford Ranger, acts like a Nissan Leaf and drives like a dream”.
It was brought to life by Takarua Mutu from Mountain Bike Rotorua and Ra Cleave from engineering firm RippleTech and, as Mutu says, it’s an attempt to take the company's decarbonisation efforts a step further and do something a bit more meaningful.
The conversion features a 40kWh Leaf battery and 110kw Leaf motor and, come December, it will be operating in the forest as a 4WD transport vehicle for bikers.
Rather than send vehicles that are nearing the end of their life to the scrap heap, Mutu says there is an opportunity to revive them, just as Mike Casey did with his 1989 Toyota ‘electrolux’.
“I’m supposed to give it up for work, but I love it,” he says. “It’s the first electric vehicle I’ve owned and I feel like I’ve started at the top.”
"We've lost the cops!" In our next instalment of Political Power, we managed to get David Seymour, deputy prime minister and leader of the Act Party, behind the wheel of a Zeekr 7x when he was in Queenstown recently. As is often the case when people take a new EV for a spin, there was much chortling as he gave it heaps up the Remarkables ski field road - and, if we take him at his word, we might even see him give Mike Casey's tractor heaps up Parliament steps in the future.
Read moreDownloadEVs are having a moment right now, so how can we get more people driving electric; Tom Selleck sums up how EV owners are feeling right now and staggering analysis shows the sun's prices have been unaffected by decades of geopolitical conflict; Scion goes solar to get off gas, while dairy farmers and homes go with solar and batteries to keep going; Saul Griffith takes his solar-powered scooter to Canberra and starts a fight with regulators; the Cancer Society's Lions Lodge in Hamilton gets some panels donated and will save $17,000 a year; and killing the Friday vibe with new studies on how fossil fuel companies made massive profits after the last energy crisis in 2022 and carbon emissions making our blood boil - perhaps quite literally.
Read moreDownloadAn electrification advocate says the rising price and falling supply of gas may not be a bad thing in the long-term. PwC research —commissioned by Gas Industry Co— has found New Zealand's gas market will need to shrink sharply as domestic supply declines. It warns this could mean business closures, job losses, and higher energy costs.