EVs on show at National Fieldays

Seven electric vehicles (EVs) plus a variety of e-bikes were discovered by EVTalk business manager Rachel Hadfield during her first visit to the National Fieldays at Mystery Creek ending Saturday.

“I was surprised at the size of it,” Hadfield says. “I’ve been to big shows before, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer scale of this.”

She downloaded the Fieldays app and saved to favourites all the companies she thought would have EVs on display.
“So I pulled out my phone to open the map on the app and started out.”

It took time to load, but Hadfield spotted the Volkswagen tent in the meantime. An all-electric e-Golf was displayed. These are not sold new in New Zealand yet, with Volkswagen dealers waiting for the upgraded model to arrive later this year.

“I then carried on down that row and saw the new all-electric LDV van, the EV80, on display there for the first time in New Zealand.” It’s due here in September.

Next was the Toyota tent. “Since they are the number one choice for taxi drivers with their Prius, I thought I’d pop in to see if they had the plug-in version on display.

“Rounding the corner, I came across the Mitsubishi Motors stand to see New Zealand’s top selling plug-in hybrid, the Outlander PHEV.

“That was the last of the EVs in that small section of the show, so I had to rely on my trusty app to find my next target – Renault. They had a huge tent type model of the Eiffel Tower, which made them easy to find with the two EVs they had on display below – the very cute Twizy and the more practical Kangoo ZE van.”

After sampling the French patisserie, Hadfield searched for “micro EVs”. “I found some fine-looking Velocity e-bikes from eBike Centre, electric dirt bikes for both adults and kids as young as two by Oset, as well as practical utility bikes by Ubco.

“My last stop before heading home was to check out the test driving area, where Hyundai had several of their all-electric Ioniqs available for trials.”