Stuck behind a campervan? It might need a recharge
Travelling around New Zealand in an electric campervan will be an option for environmentallyconscious tourists this summer.
But a lack of fast-charging stations in the South Island in particular means tourists may be wise to stick to itineraries for now.
Energy Minister Megan Woods announced yesterday that the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) would help pay for an extra 22 fast-charging stations to plug gaps on major state highways between Christchurch and Blenheim, on the Ka¯piti and Horowhenua coasts, and on the Southern Scenic highway that runs from Dunedin to Queenstown via Invercargill.
In the latest round of subsidies designed to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles, campervan company Jucy received a $365,000 grant to help design a fleet of 10 longerrange electric campervans that it plans to hire out this summer.
Rival campervan company Tourism Holdings also aims to have 10 electric campers for hire for the first Jucy co-founder Dan Alpe, above time this summer, after getting a grant from the EECA in February.
Its general manager for responsible development, Saskia Verraes, said it had yet to decide on pricing.
Jucy co-founder Dan Alpe didn’t rule out a small price premium for Jucy’s electric campers, but said they would work out cheaper for tourists, overall, once the fuel saving was factored in.
‘‘Our customer base of 18- to 35-year-olds are very conscious about the impact they are having on the environment. [In the] long term the demand is going to be there, but at the moment it is early days.’’
Range before recharging becomes necessary is the obvious drawback.
A prototype Jucy electric campervan that French tourists Heloise de Bokay and Solene Trinquet trialled for five months was limited to a range of about 100 kilometres between charges.
On a trip between Blenheim and Kaiko¯ ura, the pair had to pull up at a farm to ask to recharge. ‘‘They ended up recharging there, staying in the front yard and then leaving with a whole lot of fresh fruit the next day.’’
Alpe said relying on that sort of hospitality was not sustainable and Jucy was targeting a minimum range of 180km for its production fleet. It is working with industrial designers at Massey University to see if it can increase that to 200km.
‘‘International tourists come to New Zealand expecting to find a country which has embraced a sustainable philosophy and it is clear that more work needs to be done for us to meet these expectations.’’
Alpe said Jucy’s trial showed that tourists would tend to shop during the 20 to 30 minutes it took to fastcharge their campers, providing a reason for local communities to make them available.
Verraes said Tourism Holdings had created itineraries for tourists who hired its electric campervans, which would be available for hire from Auckland and Queenstown.
The company’s first commercial campers will have a range of about 100km to 140km, but Tourism Holdings was aiming to increase that in future vehicles to about 200km also.