My wife and I have been away on holiday for the last month in the UK. If you're a regular reader of the newsletter you'll have noticed that Mark dropped me in it for turning up at Loch Ness in Scotland to check out the nessie experience. Mark set the expectation that I'd be writing an article about it.
Bronwyn, being the troll that she is, asked if I'd be writing about EV fires this week, after seeing news articles, here and here posted about a fire on the Auckland Harbour Bridge, which involved an EV.
One of the most frequent questions I encounter, whether serious or not, is about driving an EV in the rain, or through a carwash. Of course, EVs are well built, and the normal expectation of driving is that they encounter wet weather all the time. Of what use would windscreen wipers be otherwise?
I, along with some other electric vehicle enthusiasts, attended the Wai Wheels Featherston fundraising event for our son's school. There were 7 electric cars; a Tesla 3 Performance, a Tesla X, two Minis in British Racing Green, two Kia EV6s and my little Nissan Leaf. Some had attended many events like this, and had just been to the Go Green Expo the weekend before. We happily paid the small show fee, as it was fundraising for the school, but when we arrived we weren't lined up with the other cars on display. Instead we were placed adjacent to the other cars, far away in the back corner, because of some nonsense about EVs catching fire. I was initially taken aback; surely they were joking.
So, on the back of increasing effects of climate change this week saw the “Howl of a Protest” event run by Groundswell NZ - a group that purportedly represents farmers and tradies and ute owners who protested against new government regulations they say are unworkable.In particular, they're concerned about the Clean Car Discount programme, dubiously dubbed the “ute tax” as it will penalise those who drive vehicles which spew excessive CO2 emissions.
Last weekend saw the release of a new policy by the government called the Clean Car Discount.
It has felt this summer like we are on a highway to hell. The roads themselves have been literally melting, and we had better get used to it. We are heading to a new climate reality, with more and more records being broken around rising temperatures, fires, droughts and other extreme weather events.