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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.”
The Government’s changes to the Clean Car Standard are a gift to the fossil fuel industry that will lock New Zealanders into buying expensive foreign fuels for years to come. But they don’t change the fact that, on average, electric vehicles are cheaper over their lifetime.
Read moreDownloadRNZ investigative journalist Kirsty Johnston digs into the liquified natural gas terminal decision and finds that "for a government facing blackouts and business closures in an election year, importing gas is an attractive choice. For others [including Rewiring Aotearoa, whose CEO Mike Casey was quoted in the piece] it's the worst possible option."
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