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Plenty of electric easter treats this week, with more electric buses heading to Dunedin and Wellington (and some more positive regional competition); a major new study shows EVs are more reliable than internal combustion cars; the Tesla Cybertruck stops in for a visit at Forest Lodge Orchard; an enterprising Aussie tests a solar solution to charge his electric ute, and all-electric housing developments coming up with new business models and offering greater resilience to storms.
The wheels on the bus go … electric
New Zealand needs more public transport, and that public transport should be electric, so we’re always happy to hear news about new electric buses hitting the roads.
Down south, the transition to electric buses started last year in Dunedin and Queenstown and new electric buses will soon be running from Mosgiel to Dunedin.
The new Chinese-built 75-passenger electric bus is the first to start plying the route between Mosgiel and Dunedin, and by July there will be six of the large 75-capacity buses in a fleet of 13 new electric buses being brought into service for the Mosgiel routes. Otago Regional Council transport manager Lorraine Cheyne said the Mosgiel electric bus fleet would eventually consist of six large electric buses and six normal-sized electric buses. There would also be a smaller, 22-seat, wheelchair-accessible bus for the up-and-coming Mosgiel-on-demand service, she said.
In Wellington, 16 new electric buses have recently joined Kinetic's fleet.
This brings the total number of electric buses in the Metlink fleet to 119, making it 25% electric.
Auckland, Palmerston North, Christchurch and Hamilton are also running electric buses. And this is the kind of regional competition we’re keen on.
You can count on electrons
We’ve seen plenty of anecdotal examples of EVs lasting remarkably well and costing less to maintain. Now a major study of reliability between electric vehicles and internal combustion cars has shown that going electric is the best bet - and that's without even factoring in the economic and emissions benefits.
For cars first registered between 2020 and 2022, electric vehicles experienced 4.2 breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles,” German outlet Handelsblatt reports. For combustion cars in the same age range, that figure was 10.4.
Interestingly, the most common issue for both types of propulsion was the same: the 12-volt batteries. They were the issue in 50 percent of the breakdowns for EVs and 45 percent of the breakdowns for combustion cars. In almost every single category over the last few years, combustion cars have seen more or equal issues when compared to EVs, including the electrical system, engine management, and lighting.
Of course, EVs are also devoid of potential ICE issues regardless of age. They don’t have oil to replace, nor the complex propulsion system that an internal combustion engine is, and as a result, they have fewer pieces that can break.
The ADAC acknowledges the challenges with comparing EVs and ICE cars at this point. The data is limited since all-electric vehicles just haven’t been around all that long, thus we can’t know just yet how reliable they’ll all be after they’re 10+ years old. Still, this is a good indication that EVs are improving and could indeed be a more practical mode of transportation, even when we ignore their effect on sustainability.
Thinking big
Rewiring recently got the chance to test out the Tesla Cybertruck when it stopped off for a charge on some cheap solar at Forest Lodge Orchard on its way to Wheels at Wānaka this weekend (and Mike Casey also got creative in post production by adding some electric cherries branding to see what people thought).
It’s a polarising vehicle and looks so different to anything else on the road. But whatever you think of it - like a dishwasher had sex with Robocop, as The Onion said; a vehicle that’s just too big to be practical or sustainable; or a distinctive design that might grow to be appreciated over time - it does show what electric machines are capable of these days.
They’re fast, powerful, smart, quiet, regularly updated and come with other benefits like vehicle to home or vehicle to grid capability, which will make these machines much more useful as their big batteries will be able to power homes and feed into the grid.
Utes are an extremely popular category of vehicles (even though many of them aren’t used for their intended purpose of carrying stuff and tend to be seen more in urban areas), and it’s good to see that more electric utes are on their way. In Australia, imported Ford F150 Lightnings are being turned into a right-hand drive options by a company called AUSEV.
Just like the team that travelled in an EV across Africa using portable solar panels for around 50% of its energy, an enterprising customer has figured out how to become more self-sufficient with a solar charging solution for his ute.
Electric Vehicle Council Chief Scientist Dr. Jake Whitehead is back with another look at his AUSEV® Ford F-150 Lightning, showing off a custom solar-powered fit out he's built himself.
From the beach to the bush, Jake's using fold-out solar panels to keep his gear powered and his Lightning ready - showcasing just how adaptable the platform can be with some engineering know how.
This kind of hands-on ingenuity will help advance the future of off-grid electrification, and it's awesome to see Lightning enabling it.
Home, sweet electric home
More developers are seeing the benefits of going electric, whether it’s being able to promote lower energy bills for buyers or working with utilities to create new business models.
In the US, all-electric, low-emissions neighbourhoods like Hillside East, a planned development of 155 homes, are growing in popularity and getting away from gas.
The developer wanted to add solar panels to the homes, but the added cost put some people off so they started collaborating with Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest electric utility, and a pioneer of using residential solar panels and battery storage to bolster the local grid.
The developer and utility devised a plan. Green Mountain Power would own all the electrification technology in each of the neighborhood’s homes: the solar panels on the roof that generate electricity and battery walls in the basement that store it; heat pumps that warm and cool the space; electric vehicle chargers that power up cars in the garage. Each homeowner would then pay a “resiliency fee” to essentially lease the equipment, starting at $75 per month for a townhouse. This cuts the cost for buyers, keeping the homes on par with the local housing market.
Part of New Zealand have just gone through another cyclone and electric homes in Florida have stood up well to hurricanes. While power was out via the grid for up to two weeks after Milton, the homes at Hunter's Point with their solar and battery systems kept on trucking. Not only is the energy you generate at home the cheapest you can get, it's also likely to be the most reliable.
In the last Electric Avenue of 2025, we look at the two biggest trends in the world of energy; the Government goes electric for its fancy fleet upgrade; Nick Offerman offers his services to a US campaign extolling the virtues of EVs; Australia shows what's possible in new homes when you add solar, batteries and smart tech; a start-up selling portable solar and battery systems that wants it to be as easy and common as wi-fi; and The Lines Company looks to put some solar on the roof of the Ōtorohanga Kiwi House.
Read moreDownloadWhen it comes to electric farming, "the numbers are becoming undeniable," says Nicholson Poultry's Jeff Collings. With 60kW of solar, a Nissan Leaf as a 'farm quad', electric mowers, an electric ute that can run a water blaster, and even a chicken manure scraper made out of a wrecked Tesla that, as Rewiring's Matt Newman says, looks a bit like something out of Mad Max, "almost everything is electric". There aren't many others in New Zealand who have gone this far down the electric road. And, with his electric Stark Varg, the fastest off-road motorbike in the world, he's obviously having plenty of fun on that road, too.
Read moreDownloadRNZ's Kate Newton reports on the "madness" of thousands of new piped gas connections being installed into houses every year, despite dwindling supplies and higher lifetime costs.
Casey said it was positive that the numbers showed people starting to leave the gas network of their own accord, but not all households were in a position to make that choice.
"If we don't plan for a decommissioning of the gas network, then it's going to be a chaotic transition, where vulnerable New Zealanders really suffer."
As the research of Rewiring and others has shown, gas is expensive, it's getting more expensive, it's terrible for your health when burned inside and there are substitutes available right now that, on average, do the same job for less money over the long run for households, would save the country billions on health costs and lost productivity, and don't pump out unnecessary emissions.
Around 300,000 homes and businesses have connections to the gas network (it’s estimated another 300,000 use more expensive bottled gas, mostly in the South Island). The number of active connections has started to decline recently and the country’s largest gas network, Vector, is forecasting no new residential or commercial connections after 2029.
Upfront capital costs are the main barrier for many homes, which is why we're working hard on a low-interest, long-term loan scheme that can be used to pay for electric upgrades, including hot water heat pumps. This would mean paying for a new thing with a loan would be cheaper than paying to run the old thing.
Read more about the scheme here.
Disconnection costs are also a major barrier. We have seen examples where households permanently disconnecting from the network have been charged between $1,000 and $2,000 to have a meter permanently removed (i.e. digging up the pipes to the road), even though it should only cost customers $200 to have the connection capped at the house.
RNZ even reported a case where a business customer was quoted $7,500 but took the case to Utilities Disputes, where complaints about disconnection costs have been rising.
The Australian Energy Regulator and the state of Victoria have now capped the disconnection fees to a few hundred dollars to stop this kind of behaviour and protect households.