A big THANK YOU to all of you who attended the

AV/EV Symposium Whangarei

When: 28. May, 3-6pm

Where: 36 Water Street, Whangarei (Northland Regional Council)

About Us

“Whangarei – love I.T. here”/ Vision Zero is a volunteer organisation which promotes technology as an enabler for social, cultural and economic growth. This Smart Transport initiative is one of many projects the group is running in Whangarei.

The Event

We had a fantastic group of very diverse stakeholders (over 50 of them) join the following enthusiastic & passionate presenters, covering these topics.

The Topics

• Opening by Benjamin Pittman on behalf of local iwi, and Sheryl Mai, the Mayor of Whangarei
• Future Transport options for Whangarei and Northland… a new way of thinking – Peter Ogle (Ray White)
• Update on EV/ AV and the Future of Mobility – Joe Camuso (NRC), Martin Knoche (N3T)
• NZ Projects
  • AV/EV shuttle service at Christchurch & beyond – Dave Verma (OHMIO, Auckland)
  • EV trucks – Andrew Rushworth (Zero Emission Vehicles, Palmerston North)
  • 3D Printing EV’s in NZ – Ira Munn (Ierospace Industries International, Otara)
  • EV Sharing – proposal for Whangarei – Kirsten Corson (YooGo Share)
• Whangarei’s EV Infrastructure – Russell Watson (Northpower)
• Panel Discussion with all of the above speakers plus John Gell (McKay Electrical and Smart City Expert), Dee West (Charge.net – private sector EV fast charging network provider)
• Test rides with  – YooGo Share BMW i3, Northpower Hyundai Ioniq, Charge.net Tesla X and electric bikes
• Closing by Bill Shepherd, Chairman of NRC

NOTE: All the slides presented and video footage of the event will be available by the end of this week subject to consent of the Symposium presenters/ attendants.

Who attended

Besides presenters coming from as far as Christchurch, Palmerston North and Auckland, over 50 local people wanting to learn and engage about a new future for Whangarei participated in the Symposium.

The speakers couldn’t have been more diverse and complimentary. Ranging from local business man Peter Ogle passionately explaining that something needs to happen in Whangarei to address growing issues like crashes, road deaths, exclusion of parts of the population from social & cultural opportunities, congestion, parking and other growing challenges of modern life.

To Ira Munn, an Economist turned Innovator, who demonstrated new ways to design & manufacture light EV with more efficient power systems and other disruptive technologies.

The audience consisted of

local government controlled organisations

• Northland Regional Council, our host, with a fleet of 40 vehicles
• Northland District Health Board, the biggest employer in Northland with a fleet of over 300 vehicles
• Whangarei District Council (over 50 pool vehicles)
• Northtec, the regional Polytech, with over 40 vehicle fleet, consisting of mini buses and cars

Locally operating Whangarei businesses

• WSP-Opus Engineering , 12 fleet vehicles
• McKay Electrical, 30 vehicles
• N3T, co-organiser and 6 staff Whangarei business with one company vehicle
• Semenoff Logging, one of the biggest logging truck operators in Northland, over 50 trucks and other vehicles

CEO’s, Sustainability Managers, Fleet Managers, Tutors and lots of other roles were represented in the audience. This made the discussions very exciting and productive.

For Fleet Managers in Whangarei, who are interested to take the discussed EV sharing further, check out this short fleet utilisation questionnaire. This will help you to evaluate your current fleet usage and allows you to start to determine which part of your current fleet could potentially be replaced by an EV share model.

If you are ready to commit, check out the draft expression of interest (EOI), review it and sign it.

 

Please join us to help to create a sustainable future for Whangarei.

 

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us. 

 

Further

Guide to building an EV fleet – White Paper – released 29/05/18

Northern Advocate – 01/06/18

EV Talk article – 05/06/18

Stuff article – 06/06/18