http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/73593736/christchurch-familys-electric-car-love-affair Christchurch family's electric car love affair November 2 2015 GEORGINA CAMPBELL
[video flash image / GEORGINA CAMPBELL/FAIRFAX NZ http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/7/t/g/g/0/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.17tdag.png/1446432781876.jpg Mark Nixon, Emma Reynolds, Hugh Nixon and Kate Reynolds jump in their electric car to do the school run. ] Mark Nixon's electric car saves him $3000 in petrol a year but best of all he "can drag practically anyone from the traffic lights". A Christchurch man has helped break the New Zealand record for the largest gathering of electric vehicles. The city's electric vehicle community gathered 37 licensed electric vehicles at Cathedral Square on Saturday to break the previous record of 31 vehicles. The record-breaking effort was held as part of Big Science Day, which aimed to inspire the next generation of scientists. Mark Nixon and his wife Megan Reynolds zoomed around in their electric car to keep up with their three kids, aged between 11 and 15. "It has a range of about 150 kilometres around town and it's not unusual that we do between 50 and 100 kilometres just driving the kids from school, to hockey, to dancing, and back to friend's places," Nixon said. "It's such an ideal around-town car." While the car did not have a motor that grunted on acceleration, Nixon's Nissan Leaf was surprisingly speedy. "You just put your foot down and you zoom; I can drag practically anyone from the traffic lights", he said. The family had been on the electric car buzz since August 2014, with Nixon estimating they saved about $3000 in petrol every year. "The beauty of them is that they are so cheap to run." Charging up the car was as simple as plugging a cellphone in to charge overnight. "The thing that is absolutely magic for me is that you go to bed at night and you plug it into the wall, and charge it up, and the next day it is fully charged and ready to go again." Nixon said it cost about $2 to charge the car for about 100kms of driving though town, but the main reason he bought it was to be more environmentally friendly. "At least it's something in the right direction to reducing our carbon footprint." Nixon was not the only electric car owner in Christchurch. About a dozen of them met up every few weeks to share stories. "I see more and more of them as I drive around town." The car worked best for driving around the city, but Nixon said it could make it to Geraldine with a charging stop in Ashburton. A network of "fast chargers" was in the pipeline for key stop-off places like Ashburton and Palmerston. Fast chargers had the ability to charge an electric car in about 30 minutes. Best of all, no oil changes were necessary for Nixon's low maintenance electric car. "In an electric car there is only like 10 moving parts and in a normal car there are hundreds of moving parts so less things go wrong." [© 2015 Fairfax New Zealand] For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Christchurch-nz-family-s-electric-car-love-affair-saves-3k-yr-v-tp4678529.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
