The hows and whys of owning an EV

We asked electric vehicle convert Geoff Rashbrooke to share the research he did before purchasing his vehicle. Here are his findings:

A number of Leafs, the odd Zoe and Ioniq, and others beside – electric vehicles (EVs) are already resident in Eastbourne. If you’re interested in joining the hip and happening (or the smug and nerdy, as some would have it), this should get you started.

Range

The distance you can go in an EV depends on how big your battery is, how much charge the battery has, and how you drive it.

As a very broad rule of thumb, each kilowatt (kw) of electricity your battery can store will give you about 8 km driving around town. The most common EV on NZ roads, the Nissan Leaf, first came with a 24 kw battery, giving a range of 190 km in theory. More recent Leafs have a 30 kw battery, and the current Renault Zoes have a 40 kw battery, giving the latter (again in theory) 320 km. The recently announced Hyundai Kona has a 64 kw battery, extending the around town range to over 500 km.

However, this assumes the battery can be fully charged. Over time, batteries degrade –slowly, but gradually. Nissan have calculated about 80 percent of capacity will remain after 5 years, and 70 percent remain after 10 years. The technology for replenishing/replacing batteries is just about there, but it will be some time before it’s like replacing your tyres.

And range diminishes according to how and where you drive. As speed increases, so does air resistance, and hence on the open road that 8 km per kw of battery can fall as low as 6 km. Having on lights, air-conditioning or heating, and so on, will also affect range. But