NZ could lead the way on electric cars

Reuters

WE HAVE THE POWER: Brush your teeth, put the cat out, turn the dishwasher on and plug the car in. According to the Govt's climate change strategy, this could be a reality in as little as five years.

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Brush your teeth, put the cat out, turn the dishwasher on and plug the car in.

If the Government's climate change strategy is to be believed, this could be the reality in some New Zealand homes in as little as five years.

Electric cars have been desired and designed, discounted and debunked, built and broken for many decades.

In fact, they have been everything but accessible to the average motorist.

The Government's latest punt to save the environment - its climate change strategy issued last week - plans to cut per capita emissions in half by 2040 and puts New Zealand up as a willing leader in electric car technology.

The question arises: why now, when it has not worked before?

Not worked is not entirely fair.

Electric cars are on the road in Europe, being used in California, and feature in various forms at almost every international motor show.

But getting them up and running in New Zealand, where we still import more than 120,000 used cars a year to bolster our aged fleet, would take, at the very least, a major shift in thinking, policy and technology.

California tried it 15 years ago, requiring new-car sales to be 10 per cent "zero-emission cars" by 2003.

The concept fell over long before then.

But David Parker, the minister responsible for climate change issues, is positive electric cars are the future.

"In the past decade there has been no real environmental imperative driving it, and that is the big change now," he says.

He is in plentiful company, with everyone from United Nations officials to Hollywood stars stressing the need for action on climate change and electric cars becoming de rigueur in celebrity garages, ironically often alongside petrol-sucking Hummers and other monsters of energy inefficiency.

Along with the motivation to do something, Mr Parker says lithium-ion batteries, used for laptops and cellphones, take the evolution of battery power about 80 per cent toward a feasible solution for everyday electric cars.

Car manufacturers are indeed making spectacular headway toward a commercial solution for the electric automobile, with some even putting a date on it for New Zealand.

Mitsubishi Motors New Zealand managing director John Leighton says the Mitsubishi i-Car will be on the road in Japan in 2010, and hitting New Zealand's shores not long after.

With a 660cc 47-kilowatt motor (about half the grunt in a standard Toyota Corolla), the i-Car would take about eight hours at home to fully recharge but a speedy separate three-phase plug could mean recharging in 20 minutes, something a bit more practical.

"So you can see in the future you'll have pedestals in parking buildings and outside cafes and you'll be able to put your credit card in, do your shopping and your car will be recharged," Mr Leighton says.

It is a great Jetsons-style mental picture, and Meridian Energy is banking on it, too, with a plan to bring in a variety of electric cars for road demonstrations early next year.

Meridian's electric vehicle project leader, K-J Kells, says Meridian is not interested in selling cars but wants to be the company that powers them up.

Estimates of refuelling with petrol or diesel versus recharging costs put the electric car well out in front.

New Zealand is different, and Mr Parker picks renewable energy as one of the strongest reasons that it can become "one of the three best-placed countries in the world to power electric vehicles".

With lakes, rivers, thermal activity and windy coastal land providing more and more of the country's juice, we are not polluting by using more electricity.

Using our own energy to drive our own cars would reduce reliance on imported oil, but require more electricity and in many other countries that comes from nuclear or coal-fired power plants.

As New Zealand's main supplier of renewable electricity - from hydro and wind power - Meridian has cottoned on to the key to New Zealand's picking up this technology, yet possibly the greatest hindrance as well. How much more can we use?

Mr Leighton acknowledges the need to plan ahead if this technology is to become a reality.

An extra 50,000 electric cars will boost our national electricity demand by 1 per cent, he says.

With a national fleet of about two million cars, even if only a quarter become electric, that means increasing electricity production by 10 per cent over time, without counting other increasing demands on the national grid.

Mr Parker says that New Zealand can boost electricity generation by 20 per cent through wind power alone, and more by harnessing geothermal power.