Electric car event in New Plymouth: ‘It’s a completely different experience’

For the first time six car dealerships are taking part in what is shaping as the biggest-ever ‘Electricarna’ event in New Plymouth today.

Electric car enthusiasts started the event about five years ago as a rival to the city’s celebrated US muscle-car festival Americarna.

The Better New Zealand Trust now puts the event and this year a record 40 vehicles will be on display Tasman Prospect Park.

Co-organiser Justin Smith said the approach from dealerships came out of the blue.

“It was just like a snowball, we sort of first got one that said ‘hey, we’d like to join Electricarna’ and then the word got around and then everyone said ‘hey, can we also get involved’.

“We’ve had a lot of dealers approach us which we’ve never had in the past and I think that’s because the EV uptake is becoming a lot bigger and a lot more manufacturers are now starting to produce EVs.”

Smith said Tesla Wellington would be offering test drives of the Model Y and MG Taranaki, which holds the LDV licence in the region, would be displaying LDV UT60 the only electric vehicle in its class in New Zealand.

Ford was bringing its Mustang Mach E, Hyundai would be showing the brand new Ioniq 6, local dealership WR Phillips will have the Skoda Enyaq SUV and Volkswagen would also have an SUV on display, the ID4.

Polestar New Zealand would also be offering test drives of its Polestar 2.

Smith said as the EV offering expanded interest in the event had grown.

“I think the joy of owning an EV is the freedom you get. We used to think ‘can we afford to go away on this trip because it’s going to be so costly’ whereas because we do 90 percent of our charging at home you don’t even think about what it’s going to cost.”

He said range anxiety was more or less a thing of the past also.

“Generally, depending on they type of vehicle you’ve got, you might be able to get to your destination without a charge or if you’ve got a slightly smaller range you may do one charge and then get to your destination.”

Smith said the driving experience was also something else.

“It’s a completely different experience because you’ve got no engine noise, so that you don’t actually think that the car is running, but it is, and it’s just so quiet that it feels like you are gliding on the road. You have a little bit of road noise and that’s it.”

Smith acknowledged there were arguments against EVs including the mining of lithium and cobalt for their production and the difficulty of disposing of spent batteries.

“No solution is 100 percent perfect but as the battery technology gets better they are already phasing out the use of cobalt in the batteries – which is one of the primary minerals used and hardest to get – and you’ve already got the lithium phosphate batteries the LFP batteries that a lot of the companies are switching over to.”

He said in the short term, however, it was switching to EV that was going to get New Zealand across the line in terms of carbon emission reductions.

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