Let’s start with what many assume is the biggest hurdle: battery range. Unless you’re aiming at a top-end EV like the Audi e-Tron, electric vehicles that cost less than the Government’s Clean Car Program rebate cap of $80,000 will generally give the driver between around 200km and 350km range (and it’s worth noting at this point, we’re just looking at pure Battery Electric Vehicles – or BEVs – in this article, not Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles, or PHEVs).
Those out-of-town trips will take a bit more planning, but if most of your vehicle movements across any given week are for work, school, sports, and shopping, that available range coupled with the ability to plug in at home and charge the battery overnight means you should have enough fizz in the ‘tank’ to go about your daily life.
And you probably don’t go quite as far as you think. Surveys suggest 90% of the average Kiwi’s car trips are shorter than 90km, and our average daily car travel is around 30km.
Regardless, the best advice we’ve heard for maintaining a decent amount of charge is to treat your EV like your mobile phone: very few of us would routinely run our smart devices down to zero after every charge. Adopt the same routine with your car, recharging whenever the occasion arises when out-and-about (at a public charging kiosk if you’re shopping at the mall, for example), and making it an end-of-day habit to plug in when you get home.