Tritium secures deal to supply New Zealand EV fast-charge network

Australian EV infrastructure company Tritium has secured another international order for its world-leading electric vehicle fast charging technology – this time, across the ditch in New Zealand.

The Brisbane-based firm said it had shipped 23 Veefil 50kW DC fast chargers to NZ as the first instalment of a major order placed by Charge.net.nz, as part of a three-year project to establish a network of fast chargers across the country.

Designed and manufactured in Australia, the award-winning Veefil charging system – developed over 10 years and backed by a $1.15 million Early Stage Commercialisation grant – can charge an EV in as little as 10 minutes, up to 25 times faster than plugging it into the wall at home.

Tritium installed Australia’s first Veefil fast charger for public use in Brisbane in February, as part of its ‘electric super highway’ project – a proposed network of 12 EV fast chargers linking 430km of highway in Queensland’s south-east.

The technology is also being supplied to California-based ChargePoint, as part of a huge deal that will see the award-winning Veefil fast charging stations installed throughout the US, including the express charging corridors on both the east and west coasts.

In NZ, the first NZ Veefil unit is expected to be deployed in Aukland in June 2015, on a site in the city’s North Shore. Other units will then be installed in Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

“We’ve identified around 75 sites across the country and our aim is to have fast chargers installed on all of them by the end of 2017”, said Charge.net.nz founder and managing director, Steve West.

“I looked at all the fast chargers currently available and it was an easy choice. The Veefil is ideal for our market, where many of our carparks are in buildings with limited space,” he said.

“EVs are perfect for New Zealand; our electricity generation is 80 per cent renewable and fossil fuels are expensive to export to a relatively isolated Pacific island nation. New Zealand currently has only around 250 pure EVs, but second-hand vehicles, particularly from Japan, are becoming available at a very reasonable price and as we roll out the fast-charging network, I anticipate we will see a rapid uptake in the country.”