EV Salary Boost: it's a pay rise you can drive!
"I'm an electrify everything kind of guy!" Blair Cameron, National's candidate for Nelson, is the next cab off the rank for our Political Power series and he's ticked off almost all of the electric boxes in his life.
He's a big evangelist for EVs and bought his Hyundai Ioniq around six years ago. While the range isn't huge, it gets him around his relatively small electorate and there are plenty of charging spots around when he needs them.
He also has solar on the roof (and he's a big evangelist for that, too), so that powers a lot of his driving, as well as his electric hot water and heating.
He has done environmental work in the Amazon and is a member of the Blue Greens, the environmental wing of the National Party, so he says he's always been "a big believer in trying to adopt these environmentally approaches, and get emissions down so we can all benefit."
He says the Blue Greens are about practical environmental policies that also stack up economically, and going electric fits that philosophy.
But it's crucial that we make it more affordable for New Zealanders to take up those options and get past the high upfront costs of upgrading, something that's looking increasingly likely with the broad political support for the Ratepayer Assistance Scheme.
Along with taxes, education and health, energy is proving to be a big talking point in the run up to the election .. which is now 33 days away. All the political parties have released some energy policies .. and while they're quite varied in their approaches .. the main focus seems to be bringing down the cost of electricity for us consumers. Our first guest would like electric transport to also be part of the conversation .. he's calling for a 'great EV comeback' and has some ideas about how to make it happen. Mike Casey, Rewiring Aotearoa Chief Executive joins Jesse.
The electric election continues apace! National announced its 'Electrify NZ 2.0 plan' last week and Mike Casey joined Andrew Dickens on Newstalk ZB to talk about the potential for peer-to-peer trading of energy, the roll of solar in lowering power prices, data centres needing to bring their own generation, and the likelihood that all this talk will turn into action.
