Hampden Community Energy spent about $22,000, raised at its recycling store the Top Tip Shop, and launched the one-year trial yesterday, group spokesman Dugald MacTavish said.
While the society had yet to decide how much drivers would pay, an annual payment of between $50 to $150 was being considered, and a flat kilometre charge of between 10c and 20c should cover maintenance and depreciation for the vehicle.
"It’s over to the community now to say ‘I want to drive this car’," Mr MacTavish said at the launch, which drew about 60 people to learn about electric vehicles at the weekend.
On one charge, the car could do a round-trip to Oamaru, or drive to Dunedin. Lynette and David Currie at Moeraki Boulders Motel, across from the new Network Waitaki charging station on Lincoln St, would handle the bookings.
Mr MacTavish said drivers — any area resident over 25 with a full driver’s licence — would learn how to use the car and could then book the car whenever they wanted.
He was pleased with the interest shown at the launch.
"I think they [the Hampden community] are proud about this," he said.
"The big plus is that it’s guilt-free."
New Zealand’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority website shows the Government’s Electric Vehicles Programme’s goal of 2% of traffic on New Zealand roads. This means there would be about 64,000 electric vehicles on New Zealand roads by 2021. Evolution Energy director Morgan Knoesen said there were only 1000 electric vehicles in New Zealand 18 months ago but now there were 3000. His trip from Wanaka to Dunedin before the Sunday gathering at Hampden — while only taking three and a-half hours on the road — took 18 hours because of a lack of charging stations like the one launched at Hampden at the weekend.
The cars’ range of about 120km to 150km per charge required drivers to look at the "electric highway" on the website plugshare.com to plan their route, but he believed as charging stations became more common, and drivers became aware of this,
electric cars would become a more common sight on New Zealand roads.
"The uptake is skyrocketing," he said yesterday.
"The infrastructure is being put in place."
By September there would be charging stations every 100km, he said.
Network Waitaki planning and asset manager Tod Trotman said the Hampden charging station was only the second in the Waitaki district after Oamaru, but Kurow and Omarama would get stations before the end of the year.
