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In New Zealand, we pay a petrol excise duty which helps pay for the roads and traffic accidents. No such duty is charged on diesel, instead you pay per kilometre, depending on how much your vehicle weighs. The law is written such that any vehicle consuming fuel not taxed at source must pay road user charges. Since electric vehicles consume electricity which isn't taxed, they must pay road user charges. The per kilometre charges on my vehicle are more than the cost of the electricity.

This is changing, starting in October electric vehicles will be exempt. The exemption will expire in 2013, which is probably a good thing -- if electric cars take off, there would be a big hole in the ACC & Roading budgets. It would seem that we need to thank Hon. Dr. Nick Smith, MP for Nelson and owner of a Hyundai Electron.

I took my car to show the students at my old primary school. I had half an hour with each of three classes as part of their science curriculum. The children were exceedingly interested and very positive about electric cars. I did have some rough ideas about what I might tell them but they ended up asking so many great questions that they basically led the discussion. I took a short 50²mm battery cable and a 150A 500V fuse to pass around, and I showed them a 10Ah LiFeBatt cell, an 18650 laptop cell and one of the Thunder Sky cells from my car. Before I went, I spent an afternoon cutting a polycarbonate cover to go over the battery -- I didn't want any small hands getting a shock.

If anyone is interested in starting something like B*E*S*T Outreach, get in touch, these students would be very keen.

Many thanks to those on the EVDL who gave advice on what to say.