There’s a couple of not-very-fast chargers at the Zoo, but they’re ancient units limited to only 25kw, necessitating hours of charging time in a very out-of-the-way location. At least it’s not very busy, because who wants to wants to have their wallet emptied at that rate?īeyond the CBD things are barely any better. There’s also a DC fast charger at the Z station in Vivian St, using the competing OpenLoop system – but it’s the most expensive charger in the country, at more than 300% of the price of the equivalent ChargeNet unit. The Grey St charger was out of action due to a fault, and the lack of allocated EV parking meant the Te Papa charger can’t be used by the 20-25% of EVs with a side-mounted charge port – which ours is. Within the CBD there are only two DC chargers run by ChargeNet, one at Grey St and one near Te Papa. Unfortunately, the capital is an EV charging wasteland. All up, we covered around 650km for about $55 in 90% renewable power, and arrived in Wellington with about 15% battery. We’d fully charged in Auckland, stopped in Taupō for lunch and a spell on the 300kw Hypercharger that will take the car from 10% to 100% in about half an hour, then briefly topped up again in Foxton prior to the climb up and down Transmission Gully. It only becomes critical when the road trip for business or holiday beckons, whereupon the ability to find a DC fast charger becomes pretty important.Īnd the trip down the length of the country was effortless, thanks to ChargeNet – the private company that runs the bulk of the high-speed DC chargers in Aotearoa. Now, most EVs are charged at home, so in the majority of cases the quality (or otherwise) of the public charging infrastructure doesn’t matter that much. In an effort to reduce our emissions, we opted to take the EV rather than the plane – but we failed to take account of how dire and behind the times the charging infrastructure really is in the capital. Spoiler alert: it’s a fabulous event and deserves every accolade it’s given. Last weekend my partner and I headed from Auckland to Wellington to meet up with family and attend WoW.
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