Leading the Charge, Day One – Bluff to Invercargill

It seems like forever ago that the Better NZ Trust started planning for this year’s road trip, and it felt a bit surreal to be out there again driving before the sunrise in the rain.

Reflecting on this jogged my memory of this time last year, which had much the same weather, though far less electric vehicles on the road.

It’s stunning to think that our national EV fleet has more than doubled in size each year for the past three years, a pleasing thought to have while the rain decided to do us a favour and hold off long enough to take photos at the iconic Bluff signpost.

By the time we got to Powernet in Invercargill, the second stop of the day, the rain had gone and the sun began to peek through.

Powernet chief information officer Tim Brown welcomed us. I gave a short intro to the road trip and encouraged people to take a car for a drive.

When we started the road trip two years ago it was almost to prove that you could get electric vehicles from Auckland to Invercargill and back. Now it’s more about providing the public with the opportunity to see the cars up close and speak with owners directly.

As well as the Hyundai Ioniq, Mark and Megan had people drive their Renault Zoe and Tim, a local EV enthusiast, let people drive his Outlander.

It was great to see so many enthusiastic locals at the event. Powernet has an initiative with EECA funding to encourage local businesses to consider EVs for their fleets – and people seemed suitably impressed with what the EVs could do.

We closed off the event with a few press interviews before heading off to Queenstown to prep for day two of our trip.

What a great start to the trip! I can’t wait for day two and the opportunity to share our love of EVs.

By Kathryn Trounson