Electric vehicles and Health & Safety

The March fleet forum event of the Australasian Fleet Managers Association in Auckland comprised two sections. The first, presented by Andrew Campbell of EECA, looked at what was happening in the electric vehicle sector, with an emphasis on recharging options. The NZ light vehicle fleet makes up 70 percent of vehicle purchases, and uses around 20 percent of the total transport energy. With 80 percent of NZ’S electricity from renewable sources (hydro, geothermal, wind, and solar) there is considerable potential to both reduce CO2 and reduce energy imports. So far there are just over 1,000 electric vehicles on the road here (EVS and PHEV s– Plug in hybrids). The main factors that have hindered uptake have been range anxiety, and resale anxiety. To help with the range of anxiety there is now a steady roll-out of high speed recharging stations. While home or office charging utilises standard single phase 240Vt supply, which needs 6-10 hours to fully charge a Nissan Leaf ,the high and rapid speed chargers use DC power (converted from three-phase AC) to charge a vehicle such as a Leaf to 80 percent charge in under 20 minutes. Complicating this is that a variety of fast charging connections exist, depending on where the vehicle is manufactured (Japan, Europe and USA). Most EVS have both the standard AC connection (with a lead to a three-pin plug), plus one of the high speed DC connectors. The charge.net stations being installed through New Zealand offer the Japanese CHADEMO and the European CSS connections for high speed charging of most EVS (although not the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV which can use AC fast chargers). Andrew also covered how charging solutions can be integrated into shopping centres, existing offices and new office buildings. The second presenter was Annette Paul from Worksafe NZ who gave an overview on the Health and Safety changes coming in on April 4 and the effect on fleet vehicles (see P16).