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By Russell Watson of NorthPower.

The REV-UP Northland after 5 EV event was held on the 12 August and hosted at Northpower’s head office in Whangarei. About 24 EVs and PHEV vehicles turned up with over 40 people attending. The attendees travel led from various parts of Northland and there were some who travelled from Auckland. The aim of the evening was to promote EVs and keep our local EV owners update on what is happening. All EV owners and those interested in EVs were welcome also an ideal chance to network amongst the EV community.  

The weather was kind to us that evening which allowed people to view the electric vehicles before moving indoors to start the main part of the evening. There were speakers for “Blue Cars” and “Charge Net” along with an update on the Northland EV scene. Also attending were representatives of the local automotive industry. Northpower extended the charging capabilities (four J1772 charging, a 10 Amp outdoor and one 16 Amp caravan socket) at our Head office to by adding a 32 Amp 3 phase out door socket to allow a portable IEC62196 type 2 charging unit to be plugged, ideal for the charging Tesla S.

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The awards section of the evening was interesting as the candidates shared their EV stories prior to the audience voting.

These awards are in recognition of those people or organisations that have made significant contribution to the promotion and uptake of electric vehicles, electric vehicle charging or support services. The inaugural awards have four categories. There were four awards:

  • The Longest EV Road Trip (Craig Salmon):  This award recognises the person or persons would undertake the longest road where the primary aim was to promote EVs and EV technology. “Longest” can be measured by distance covered or time taken.
  • The most “Run Outs” (Kashani Sharma):  This award recognises the person or persons would have contributed to understanding of the range and operating performance of EVs by running out of electricity. The run out may be unintentional or intentional, but is expected to involve multiple run outs.
  • The EV Ambassador (Joe Camuso):  This award recognises the person or organisation that has done the most to promote EVs, EV charging or support for EVs. The promotion of EVs may have been at a Northland Regional level, a National level or both.
  • EV Pioneer (Bob Smith):  This award recognises the person or persons who were actively developing EVs and EV technologies prior to the EVs or the technology being commercial available.

Given the success of this event we are planning to run this as annual event, however if it grows significantly we may need to look for a different venue. We are also looking at an EV rally possibly late summer to a Northland destination likely to be Paihia.

 

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