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$3.74 million for new EVs in NZ

Posted on 17 January, 2018
$3.74 million for new EVs in NZ

More electric vehicles will be on New Zealand’s roads with funding announced by Energy and Resources Minister Megan woods today. Dr Megan Woods announced a $3.74 million fund for 20 projects in the third round of the Low Emission Vehicles Contestable Fund, administered by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA). “These exciting projects include a 58 tonne fully electric truck to be used by CODA in Hamilton to shuttle Fonterra’s dairy goods to the railway,” Dr Woods said. “Projects like this are vital to show others in the heavy logistics and transport industry that electric trucks are not only viable but have very low running costs.” Dr Woods said $1.7m of the funding would help fill gaps in the country’s charging infrastructure. One project aims to ‘plug the gaps’ in the North Island fast charging infrastructure and will see a fast charger installed at 15 supermarket locations including Kawerau, Matamata, National Park, and Pirongia. Funding was also going towards tourism opportunities such as electric camper-vans. “The projects we are funding show there’s an EV for almost every job or use in New Zealand, be it delivering fruit and veg or taking a holiday.” Also announced was a Motor Industry Training Organisation (MITO) project to develop a qualifications framework for technicians working on electric vehicles. Currently, there is no NZQA-registered qualification or national standard for this work. To read a summary of the successful third round projects Click Here.