Read our new Electric Homes and Vehicles report
Around 150,000 new vehicles are purchased every year in New Zealand and around 60% of them are bought by businesses. We reckon a lot more of them should be electric - both for the benefit of those companies but also to seed the second-hand market - and that could be on the cards now because one of the major barriers to fleet EV uptake has been removed.
Following discussions with companies that had large vehicle fleets (including Vittoria Short at ASB), we learned that WorkSafe New Zealand guidance was getting in the way of wider EV adoption because if a work vehicle was being charged at an employee's home, the home was to be considered to be a workplace.
That came with the associated liability and compliance costs for companies and understandably put them off.
We talked with WorkSafe and now Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden has taken action. The guidance has been updated and common sense has prevailed.
The Minister says it best: "Crucially, employee homes are no longer referred to as workplaces in the new guidelines... I expect this to free up the employer-owned EV landscape and give businesses more confidence to choose EVs for their organisations."
Rewiring is keen to keep working with companies to help drive fleet EV uptake. It makes so much sense for profitability, productivity, resilience, emissions and more. So whether it's company cars for getting around town or big rigs for getting around the country, the future is looking increasingly electric.
Read more about the change here.
When Mike Casey bought his house near Cromwell, it came with gas bottles on the side of the home for water and an expensive diesel system for the underfloor heating. He replaced both of them with a Steibel Eltron system and it's been saving him money ever since. As technical manager Bhawesh Singh told him at the Electrify Queenstown conference, there has been a big influx in enquiries from homes looking to get off the molecules and onto electrons.
Read moreDownloadConfidence that cutting regulations to make solar power more accessible - won't jeopardise people's safety. A new Regulation Ministry reports laid out a potential blueprint to legalise plug-in solar and reduce the time and cost of panel installation. Rewiring Aotearoa CEO Mike Casey shares his thoughts with Andrew Dickens.
The burgeoning demand for solar was also a chance to address a mismatch between the numbers of training opportunities available and young people searching for work, Casey said. "The mums of New Zealand are telling me that there's not enough apprenticeships for their kids and the solar installers of New Zealand are telling me there's not enough trained people."
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