Orion Health chief executive McCrae with his Tesla Model S. Photo / Supplied
Orion Health chief executive McCrae with his Tesla Model S. Photo / Supplied
"I love my Tesla Model S. It's the best-engineered car I've ever driven," says Kiwi tech legend Ian McCrae.
And yet, the Orion Health founder has just slapped a big ugly bumper sticker on its rear.
Its custom-designed message reads: "EV powered by Indonesian coal".
Orion Health chief executive McCrae with his Tesla Model S. Photo / Supplied
It's a change of pacefrom the decals you typically see on Teslas, which usually feature the likes of "Undo" or "LOL Gas" personalised plates or other messages celebrating the environmental merits of electric vehicles.
But McCrae wants to highlight that New Zealand has been importing record amounts of coal recently - and the "dirtiest" type at that - as the Huntly Power Station has been called on to supplement our hydro and geothermal generation.
And as new EVs pile on to NZ roads, McCrae says they're effectively being powered by that dirty coal.
The EV surge is definitely under way. The Government's Clean Car Discount scheme - which sees rebates of up to $8625 for a new electric car - stoked EV sales last year. A record 3290 Teslas were registered in NZ last year as EV sales spiked to account for as many as one in five new car sales as the new incentives kicked in.
And a recent report anticipates some 1.5 million EVs on our streets by 2035 - not an outlandish projection given most major car manufacturers have said they will switch to exclusively producing hybrids and EVs by 2030.
But McCrae says the Government has not made any serious moves to expand renewable power generation - and that at the same time it's moved to choke gas production.
He can't actually drive his Tesla right now. Following successful surgery to remove a brain tumour, he is not allowed to get behind the wheel. But the entrepreneur remains a huge EV advocate. He just wants our Government to come to the party as well with more renewable power projects of serious scale.
Last July, it was revealed New Zealand had imported 1.1 million tonnes of coal from Indonesia - and not just coal but sub-bituminous coal which must be burned in greater quantities to achieve the same energy output. "It's the dirtiest coal," fossil fuel researcher Cindy Baxter said.
An energy analyst at Enerlytica, John Kidd, said New Zealand's reliance on this coal undoubtedly raises greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia was NZ's only other major source of coal, sending around 10 per cent of the amount we imported from Indonesia.
"The fact that we're importing a carbon-intensive fuel into the country and using it domestically to meet demand is carbon-intensive. It will be adding significantly to our greenhouse gas emission footprint here," Kidd said.
A battery of Teslas: Ports of Auckland captured this image of incoming Model 3s in November last year. Photo / @AKLPort
Transmission infrastructure support is on the way for our anticipated EV surge.
Lines companies like Vector are piloting new, centrally-coordinated smart systems for charging EVs at night.
Vector Simon Mackenzie recently said, "You might have one household worth of energy on a property and by virtue of putting an [EV] charger in your home - and not a fast charger or a supercharger, it's just a pretty standard type of charger - that's like adding two more households' worth of energy on your existing load."
And at the macro level, national grid operator Transpower said in a report that around 40 new, grid-scale, generation and batteries projects will be required, which will cost $50m per year from 2030 and rising to $300m per year by 2050 (which it says will be easily offset, in national terms, by savings from reduced petrol purchasing).
But details of what those new transmission and generation projects will entail are thin on the ground. And in the meantime, McCrae says his Tesla is effectively running on dirty coal.
Show pony projects
Earlier, Energy Minister Megan Woods said the energy sector has committed more than $1 billion in new renewable capacity this year alone, including both geothermal and wind energy plants. Another wind farm, Waipipi, opened in June last year, and the country's biggest solar farm in Kapuni - a $227m project whose 5800 photovoltaic panels are capable of generating enough electricity to meet the annual needs of around 520 homes.
Woods was asked, if coal is necessary, why New Zealand couldn't import it from a country with a stronger environmental record. She said these are business decisions made by privately-owned companies.
The Government is a majority shareholder of each of Genesis, Mercury and Meridian energy companies.
