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Plugs not pumps

Australia’s solar and battery numbers are cause for jealousy. And now it's starting to pull ahead on EV adoption rates.

Full EVs outsold petrol vehicles for the first time, making up around one quarter of all new car sales. And the Tesla Model Y was the top selling car overall in August (well ahead of the RAV4 and Hilux).

As the Electric Vehicle Council’s Julie Delvecchio said: “This points to a structural shift underway in the Australian car market — not a temporary spike. Now there is more choice than ever before, people are switching to electric because they’re cheaper to run and better to drive.”

Plenty of other countries crossed that line a while back, as Jan Rosenow outlines. 

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In New Zealand, while numbers are also tracking up, we are not even close to crossing over and the EV share in the year to date was around 12% of new cars. 

Plug-in hybrids remain popular but they still require plenty of fuel (and we don't count them). So if you are thinking of investing, we like to say ‘don’t half arse it with a hybrid, cover your arse completely with an EV’.  You'll be in good company.

Live long and prosper

Battery life is one of the biggest concerns for those considering switching from petrol to electrons. Early EVs certainly had some issues as it was new tech, but fears of battery degradation have been largely unfounded and a new study has found they keep on trucking for longer than expected.

As the FT wrote: 

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“EV battery warranties typically cover eight years or 100,000 miles (160,000km) with car manufacturers required under the warranty to provide a replacement battery if capacity falls below 70 per cent.  According to the latest study published by Aviloo, an Austria-based group that analyses battery health, the median state of health (SoH) — which represents the remaining percentage of a battery’s original usable capacity — for 20 popular EV models stood between 87 per cent and 94 per cent after 150,000km.” 

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For context, that’s about 12 years of average driving and while the best petrol car has already been built, EVs and battery tech keeps getting better. 

If you want to give that battery a boost as you’re going, then this Washington Post story about a trip in the solar-powered Aptera is for you.

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High hopes

Flying is one of the hardest sectors to electrify because of, well, physics. Air New Zealand ran its trial with A BETA electric plane this year, and Heart Aerospace has recently flown the largest electric airplane ever.

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It has a 100-foot wingspan, a takeoff weight of 25,000 pounds, and $5 of electricity to get it off the ground.

In this video, co-founder and CEO Anders Forslund explains “how they went from a 3D-printed model to a full-scale electric aircraft in seven years, why the jet engine has left short flights behind, and what cheap electric flight could unlock for the future of regional air travel”. 

Mined your business

From big things in the air to big things on land. China leads the way when it comes to large electric machines and one of the biggest has just hit the road. 

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“Mining trucks were supposed to be one of the last machines on Earth batteries could realistically replace — too heavy, too brutal a duty cycle, too far from any grid. On August 10, 2026, Chinese company Zijin Longking rolled out a 350-ton electric haul truck that charges from 10% to 90% in about 25 minutes, with zero diesel engine. This video breaks down how a Chinese mining company built its own truck division, proved the technology at one of the highest-altitude copper mines on Earth, and is now aiming the platform directly at Caterpillar and Komatsu's biggest machines.” 

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Fridge magnet

Hot water is one of the big energy users in the home (around 30% if you don’t include the car). While space heat pumps are mainstream in New Zealand, hot water heat pumps are just picking up steam.They work in the same way (and they work in the opposite way to a fridge) and Technology Connections explains in great detail how they work. 

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