By Gareth Vaughan
The first New Zealand and international wave of electric vehicle (EV) uptake is probably over, with cheaper cars and better public charging infrastructure required for further major growth in the uptake of these "batteries on wheels," says James Foster.
In a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Foster, who runs the EVDB website, says EVs reaching price parity with internal combustion engine (petrol) vehicles, will be a very significant development. The rise of Chinese EVs should help with this.
"At the beginning of 2022 we didn't really have any Chinese brand vehicles [in NZ] and now 20% of those on the road are [Chinese]. It's happened in two years. And that kind of shows you, I guess, why maybe the US have freaked out and implemented protectionist policies to try and protect their own car market. The amount of momentum coming out of China is extraordinary. And the build quality, I wouldn't say is taking people by surprise. But I know historically in New Zealand when we have new brands come to market...way back with the Japanese brands or Korean brands, at first you're kind of like, 'I don't know about this.' And then eventually they become normalised. They just become another brand that's part of the story," Foster says.
"I keep a running tally all the time of the 10 cheapest EVs in New Zealand, and then I get an average from that and that gives me an indication of where we're at. Those are all Chinese vehicles."
From a personal perspective Foster enjoys his EV being a part of energy self sufficiency, or sovereignty.
"That's something that I find quite profound. Since I got the solar panels on the roof I feel like I'm in science fiction...I've actually got the sun's rays going into my house's power and then into a battery in my car and I drive it. Compared to drilling oil, refining it, putting it on a ship, sending it over, driving it down..."
In the podcast Foster also talks about the reasons for the dramatic drop in EV uptake in NZ this year, the popular models and brands, prices including in the secondhand market, battery range, home and public charging, insurance and repairs, other EVs beyond cars such as utes, vans and heavy transport, hybrids and hydrogen vehicles, his expectations for NZ's future vehicle fleet and how electricity supply will cope.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
133 Comments
Electric motors, regen braking, no gearbox radiator and associated ice engine components is no doubt the future. After seeing and removing multiple swollen laptop lithium batteries, I'm just not convinced that is the future of dense energy storage.
Lots of RND in this storage space. Something better and cheaper will arrive.
A hybrid won't save you money a new car wont save you money. But its worth looking at running cost.
A Battery electric car will cost you 12 cents a km against a petrol car costing 30 cents a km.
The BEV will pay a larger amount of road tax in the form of RUC which at current settings is 8 cents of the 12 cents per km. Note National has said all cars will be paying RUC in the future.
So when your old Honda dies a used leaf might work for you if your not doing more then 80 kms a day.
EVDB.nz has the calculators and stats on new used cars.
You can’t compare a thermally managed EV battery with a dumb li-ion battery in a phone. It’s like comparing a catapult to a missile launcher.
I just drove a petrol rental for a week after 8 years of having an EV and truly it felt like driving a steam engine with crappy acceleration, no regen, noise, smell and shaking.
Nothing to do with status - they just drive better. If you want imagined status then consider a Bentley or something equally daft.
All modern cars are expensive to repair - sensors in the nose, lots of crash protection systems, fancy paintwork.
Hydrogen is a fools errand given its basic physics - it’s either made from methane or electrolysis of water. Both use far more energy than the H2 provides. And if you’re worried about “savage costs” consider the repair cost on a fuel cell stack and maintenance of a pressurised cylinder at 700 bar - a bit more than your average mechanic can deal with, so an entire servicing industry needs to be created.
Nothing to do with status - they just drive better. If you want imagined status then consider a Bentley or something equally daft.
Displaying wealth is kinda faux pas these days. Much more social currency in being seen to be doing the right thing and EVs are the new Prius in this realm.
Instant torque is nice, but it's at a fairly decent premium. Cars are a money pit at the best of times, there will be some use cases where it'll stack up for owners but financially it's a questionable proposition.
Wyoming huge discover of natural hydrogen. Most major car companies looking at producing hydrogen cars. As easier to convert ICE engines to run on since it will take an extremely long time to replace ICE cars with EVs quicker to convert and run hydrogen as infrastructure is in place
I was on a flight with some blokes from the island of Granada last year who were flown to and from China to train them how to work on EV's, all funded by China. I had to ask them the question of what good is an EV on an island which hardly has enough of an electricity grid to supply their island and is all derived from fossil fuel generation anyway.
"I'm watching hydrogen very closely at the moment."
I've been watching hydrogen for 40+ years. I'm still watching. And expect to be watching for the rest of my days. .... They are just way, way, way too many problems in its production, transportation and supply for hydrogen ever to become a mainstream consumer fuel. But never say, never, ay?
Hydrogen will never be cost competitive with electricity direct into batteries. There's way too many energy losses in the process of creating, compressing, storing, distributing and using Hydrogen.
We're better off with synthentic hydrocarbons, but they'll never be competitive with BEV's. It'll just be for the classic car enthusiasts.
I'd not be too concerned buying the current battery chemistry so long as they were based on the standard the Chinese drove through for battery recycling. If memory serves, they're called BLADE batteries? The standard makes the recycling of current batteries far more efficient, less dangerous, and gets far better recovery rates. But agree - new chemistries are under development, and in early stages of production, that will make the current generation look like the old lead-acid donks.
Averageman - it is important to separate chemistry, from hype.
Batteries are the storage and discharge of electrons, via chemical change/reset. As with all such processes, entropy applies - in other words the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics holds.
That means all batteries deteriorate, then fail. That means there is a limit to battery 'development' (and you know you're getting close to that limit when they have a tendency to catch fire).
Development will therefore hit limits. Just like everything physical, does.
Look, I've been off-grid for 20 years. Lead/Acid then Lifepo4's. I think the latter are so much easier to live with. But - EVs are the right answer to the wrong question. They are an attempt to prolong an unmaintainable lifestyle - one which consumes the planet too quickly. That system is chopping away its own supports now, in a doomed attempt to prolong. That means war/collapse/reset. Who produces, buys batteries at all, in that scenario?
So wee need to be anticipating a couple of decades limping with a reducing batter fleet, then looking at something maintainable. The best low-tech battery is water-at-height. Hydro at any scale. We ought to be thinking about that NOW.
People like to carry on about the cost of replacement batteries, largely based on fear, misinformation or outdated (absent) battery management techniques.
What they never consider is that in the lifetime of a petrol car, it will likely burn more than 20 tonnes of petrol... 20 tonnes of pollutant, expensive, imported, burn once and poison the atmnosphere fuel...
Versus a half tonne battery, which probably won't actually have to be relaced.
Those of you who defer buying an EV, possibly based on 'wait a few more years, then upgrade' mindset don't consider is that the new combustion vehicle imported for you today will still be polluting long after you've finally done your upgrade to EV, whereas if you'd bought EV in the first place that carbon cougher would never have been needed.
Besides the near zero maintenance of EVs, another blessing is the total absence of cold starting / cold engine performance that combustion engines all suffer. Just hop in and it goes like a bullet (if you need it to).
Jones is not talking about spill.
But on that, when dams are spilling (can happen at any time of the day) by default they will be generating flat out at that time.
Thermal (gas, coal) generation is often marginal generation but by no means all the time. And the quantity of it is not necessarily be huge.
But if you look at one more EV brought into NZ, everything else staying static, sure its going to be powered by thermal much of the time. But big new generation plants are brought on line in chunks. So in reality the proportion of thermal being used in cars will vary over time.
Jimbo Jones is wrong, Chris Morris right, and the fossil-derived comment (globally) is correct. Take away fossil input, globally, and the grids (US for instance) are toast.
Can they be made to operate WITHOUT fossil energy? I say no (Morris is a techo-optimist, perhaps a touch of Uptton Sinclair in there, and may say yes). Nobody has built so-called renewable energy infrastructure, using renewable energy infrastructure. The EROEI just isn't good enough.
So yes, fossil energy is leaving us. Yes, logically that says we're into renewables, and should be going there ahead of time. But we won't be maintaining this level of energy-use (and therefore of work and therefore of production/consumption).
Take the step back and look at how the materials for the batteries are mined, where the electricity or heart is derived form to make said batteries, run the machinery in the factories etc. It takes energy to make something that stores energy. We may have renewables, but then where does the energy come from to make the replacement turbines for these renewable sources, or the power lines to transport the electricity?
If you're going to analyse where the 300kgs approx of the batteries are mined from you also need to consider the environmental costs of the 20,000l of petroleum extraction, refining and distribution and carbon cost across the relatively short lifespan of most ICE vehicles. And then consider that the metals in a battery are already partly recycled, and that the batteries will continue to provide useful energy storage after the life of the vehicle is over and after that the sheer value of the metals make batteries the equivalent of extremely high grade metal ores. Those metals will continue to circulate in perpetuity.
Sure there are EV excavators. Those huge coal drag line excavators run off the mains.
Even energy from a coal fired power plant is cleaner than a car engine
https://thedriven.io/2024/01/31/electric-vehicles-use-half-the-energy-o…
So even at 100% coal powered, an EV is cleaner. Here in NZ we're (today) running at 78% renewables (which is low for us on a weekend it's typically 85% renewables)... so yeah, that little portion of fossil fuel powering an EV is still way superior to a tank of gas.
Give it time. Electricity generation based on renewable sources reached price parity with fossil fuels some years ago and is now cheaper. China is building electricity generation based on renewables like never before. They're good like that ... taking a longer term view.
thanks for this link. I always wondered about this question, but I actually wonder if this is really answering the core question here. it talks about energy and energy efficiency, but does that actually equate to CO2 emissions? there are also grid losses to be considered when transferring power from generation to car charger. The question to really ask would be how far would a ton of CO2 emitted get you if burned from coal versus petrol.
Not true in NZ at all - over 85% of our electricity is from renewable sources, so EVs are mostly powered by hydro, geothermal and wind - https://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/news/energy-in-new-zealand-2023-shows-re…
Mine mostly comes from solar. The national grid supplies around 50-60% low/no carbon electricity.
But your point is well-made as there is a clear carbon cost to solar panel and car production, so we shouldn’t oversimplify the issue, in addition to the high carbon energy component we still rely on.
I’m banking on my solar panels to become carbon neutral after 8-10 years and my car after 70-80, 000 km, but maybe even this is optimistic.
Engineer 11, do you live in NZ are you aware of the heavy lifting our hydro systems do supporting both South Island and the distant North Island. Add to that the fact that even coal fired electricity is more efficient and therefore less polluting than your very inefficient petrol diesel car. If you want to be very green walk or cycle if you have to drive use electricity, its cheaper to run and not going to pollute the air you breathe.
Un-extinguishable Li-ion battery fires releasing masses of highly toxic fumes due to short circuit/thermal runaway caused either by accident or manufacturing fault is a very real thing, as the 22 factory workers who recently died in South Korea found out. The fire required 160 firefighters to bring under control and involved the same number of battery cells as 7 Teslas.
No, minor chassis damage can be straightened and repaired on an ICE. With EVs it is not possible to assess whether any of the thousands of cells in the battery has suffered damage which will cause a future short circuit and thermal runaway, leading to the total destruction of the car (and the house that it is garaged in).
"No, minor chassis damage can be straightened and repaired on an ICE. With EVs it is not possible to ..."
Not so. My panel beater (employs 20+ people) tells me the sort of damage to an EV that would bring the safety of the batteries into question would not be repaired on an ICE either. I.e. both would be write-offs.
The presence of a Li-ion battery in an accident doesn't increase the risk of a catastrophic battery fire incident many hours or days later
Given the nature of physical damage to the layers or circuitry of those batteries increasing the risk of short circuits and thermal runaway I doubt that's the case - however maybe your guy is right and the insurance companies don't really differentiate between damage to an EV and damage to an ICE.
I’ve got both ICE and EV and don’t see significantly different insurance costs. We prioritise use of EV for environmental, cost and comfort reasons. With decent PV on the roof it’s powered by sunlight, needs no servicing, is smooth and silent.
Not worried about fires - that’s an issue trumped up by anti-EV brigade - and remember petrol is used for internal combustion for the very reason that it’s highly explosive.
Waste sector fears 'catastrophic' electric vehicle battery fires, as first wave of EV batteries reach end-of-life
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-29/waste-electric-vehicle-battery-l…
The batteries, the motors, the electric boosted steering and brakes. The motors for instance only have 1 moving part making them far simpler and far more reliable than combustion motors. I plan to convert my Landcruiser to electric using a Tesla motor and inverter once my old diesel reaches 500,000km.
Actually they prefer slow charging. And vehicle-to-load connectivity means you won’t have to rip car’s battery out, just plug it in. This technology is available with some EVs already and will be widespread within a short time
https://www.sunrun.com/ev-charging/ford-f150-lightning#!adchoices?intcm…
Well, he would say that wouldn't he
https://www.goauto.com.au/news/ford/f-150/lightning/ford-axes-f-150-lig…
Amazing how big the price cuts have been by dealers trying to sell EVs. Clearly they milked it while the going was good and the EV subsidies were in place. Great Wall Motors have slashed the ORA from $42k down to $27k, and MG are similar discounts on their range. VW have dropped sticker price on the ID range about $20k as well.
The average EV owner saved $3k on petrol in the last year, while getting smashed over $20k in depreciation. Many will be upside down on their car loans now, and their car running costs are not even much lower than a cheap hybrid Toyota Prius now that RUCs are in place for EVs.
I like EVs, and would buy one if I could justify it. But like most people, keeping my cheap ex-rental Toyota and putting extra money on my mortgage is a far better return than ticking up an EV to save a few thousand in petrol.
Given the most popular EV on the road in NZ is a Nissan Leaf, many of which are bought as Japanese imports for less that $20k, I'd like a source to your depreciation claim before I believe it
https://www.carjam.co.nz/nz-fleet/?motive_power=ELECTRIC&year=-1
https://www.drivencarguide.co.nz/news/new-zealands-ev-trade-in-values-h…
"...foresees a scenario where EVs will ultimately become so worthless they’ll be dumped, with the cost of proper disposal being higher than their value."
First port of call will be reusing the batteries and not go to the hassle of recycling, like we are already doing even though there aren't that many Leafs reaching the end of their life:
https://countiesenergy.co.nz/media-centre/counties-energy-repurposes-en…
It's an interesting pilot, but hard to scale. Reusing them still carries a cost, and if you're going to the expense and effort, it'd be more sensible to integrate a newer battery which will be better technology, cheaper and a known quantity.
There'd be some market for them, but it'd be at the lower end.
10 year old Leafs sell for $5-15 thousand depending on condition. I have no doubt new EVs which are much better than Leafs were 10 years ago will sell for as much if not more.
Yes EVs depreciate a bit faster than comparable petrol cars at the moment, but buying a new car is almost never a good choice from a purely financial perspective.
"But I'd still be nervous that solid state batteries coming out over the next couple of years will make today's EVs obsolete."
I'm far more sanguine about that. The whole battery pack has a fixed dimension. It gets unbolted. And a new pack is bolted in. What type of battery chemistry is used is largely irrelevant in the process. So when you need a new battery - you'll most likely get whatever the latest battery chemistry is en vouge.
iPad on wheels with deteriorating battery and poor resell. Unless with a used phone you can chuck it in the draw and forget about it, cant do that with an EV with weak battery.
Don’t dislike electric cars just don’t like battery cars. Recycle the EVs like old household refrigerators.
I'm really waiting on fully self-driving cars to be available to the public.
While I love a winding country road on a motorcycle or in a car I loath city driving in traffic. I want to be picked up at the garden gate and dropped at the office entrance, take commuting out of my life.
All this talk of EVs versus ICE is just a side show. The elephant in the room concerns cows, sheep and methane.
Methane is 21 times more polluting than CO2. The only future for NZ dairy is to enclose all pasture land in transparent canopies and have methane extractors within. The captured methane would then have to be chemically converted into something harmless.
Already you can scrape a few inches of snow and/or loose ice off increasingly larger areas of the Arctic land mass to reveal an ice layer just beneath in which you can see innumerable circles of varying diameters. These circles are methane gas bubbles just below the surface. You can break the ice over these circles and hear the methane hissing as it escapes into the atmosphere. Throw a match at it and it will burst into flame.
And, incidentally, growing pine forests throughout our land to capture CO2 is not a long-term solution because pine trees only last 50 or so years and then die off. Burying captured carbon at depth is the only solution because at depth CO2 can convert to rock.
I presume all the energy needed to achieve these goals would be created by hydro, solar or wind.
The only future for NZ dairy is to enclose all pasture land in transparent canopies and have methane extractors within.
Thanks for the nonsense ideologically driven science fiction. In case you haven't noticed, New Zealand society has real problems to deal with before worrying about fantasy land.
One of the real problems the country has is farm methane emissions. This issue won’t go away - if nothing is done as climate crisis worsens our export markets will start imposing penalties in similar way how trade in virgin forest timber is now restricted. It’s a tough issue but burying head in sand won’t solve it
"Foster enjoys his EV being a part of energy self sufficiency, or sovereignty". What a bizarre comment. I have an EV, but I am well aware that while there are zero tailpipe emissions, in all other respects, producing it comes with a similar emissions profile to ICE cars. Most steel is still made using fossil fuel powered furnaces, all the plastic comes from fossil fuels and all or almost all the mining associated with the other metals and minerals involves the use of fossil fuels both to make and power the machinery.
some more questions for which I don’t know the answers
Apart from financial aspects regarding EV, there are issues such energy and other resources required to mine lithium , are there enough Lithium reserves to run EV globally ? Mining of rare earth metals is problematic. Disposal of mountains of used lithium batteries in due course.
What s the net energy savings and impact on environment to mass produce EV for the world?
BEV cost per km 12 cents, 4 cents fuel, 8 cents RUC.
ICE cost per km 30 cents, no RUC as yet but expected in the near future.
China already has price parity between electric and fossil fuel cars, its why EVs are its biggest sellers.
In terms of environmental impact fossil fuel isn't known for cleaning up its mess, and you cant recycle burnt fossil fuel. You can power an EV with solar and wind power cutting costs and low impact. If you want a very small footprint don't have children and walk a lot.
You could build 100x ebikes with the battery in one EV. And most car trips aren't even that far:
- 17% (one-sixth) of driver trip chains are less than 2km long.
- 43% of driver trip chains are less than 5km long.
- 48% of driver trip chains are less than 6km long.
- 53% of driver trip chains are less than 7km long.
- 65% are less than 10km long
Ministry of Transport, Household Travel Survey, 2003–2009
But no one seems to be interested in cycle ways. If we were serious about reducing roading costs, health care costs, we'd do this.
Might as well build electric mass transit then, so things like weather, age, and disability aren't an inhibition to people using this expensive new infrastructure.
But yeah you're right, for inner cities something like an electric scooter or bike is an infinitely greener and environmentally friendly solution than current electric cars. Better for the populations fitness also.
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