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If you need to charge along the way, decide where you want to stop and consider a couple of options to keep things flexible.

A fast charge can take up to 30 minutes, so plan your charging stops to coincide with lunch, coffee, or a toilet break.

 to work out where to stop and how much to top up. 

Waka Kotahi NZTA has a handy map of EV chargers nationwide to plan your journey. 

What it costs to power your car for 100km*

prices assume a typical electric vehicle uses 20kWh to travel 100km for $0.80/kWh and that it takes an average of 10 litres of petrol to drive 100km.

Octopus Energy Add-To-Bill service manages all your energy and fuel charges on the same bill and allows you to access ChargeNet and Openloop charging stations.

Start fully charged, then top up to 80% max

Start your road trip with 100% charge. It’s cheapest and most convenient to charge at home, getting you the best bang for your buck.

If you have to top up on your journey, it’s completely fine to add as much as you need to get to your next charging destination to minimise the time to stop and charge along the way. ‘Snack charging’ won’t harm your battery health, and it’s polite to let the next person in line use the charger. 

As a rule, the most you should top up on a public fast charger is 80%. This is because the last 20% of the battery takes much longer — as long to charge as the previous 70% — this slowdown is due to the battery’s thermal management system kicking in to counteract the heat created by fast charging.

Driving to enjoy the view will reduce your total travel time by conserving your battery and getting you further from a single charge.

Electric vehicles are designed to be efficient, and most newer models have enough range to not need charging for a long journey, somewhere between 300 and 700 kilometres. 

The measurement “kilometres per kilowatt-hour” tells you how many total kilometres you can go for each kilowatt-hour you have remaining in your battery. Understanding how your driving style affects this can give you a better sense of your range.

If you're driving on the open road, you might see that number drop as you accelerate up the motorway on-ramp or when you put your foot down to overtake. Acceleration happens at higher speeds and higher rpm, where electric motors are less efficient. When you accelerate at motorway speeds, you’ll get fewer kilometres per kilowatt. 

Range will extend when you’re pootling around town or riding the brakes coasting down hill. Regenerative systems built into EVs generate electricity and charge your battery as you slow down. EV drivers learn to speed up gradually and gently to get to the same destination in about the same time.

Wind resistance sucks battery power too. Resistance increases exponentially, so you’ll get more range driving at 80kph compared to 100kph. 

If you include charging time en-route, the overall journey time will be lower if driving slower - and at least within the speed limits! Of course safer as well. Take it easy, make more stops, and have a look around along the way. 

No one likes being stuck in traffic, but if you do find yourself in a holiday traffic jam, the good news is that your EV won’t have a problem. EVs use very little power when not moving or moving slowly, so sitting in traffic won’t drain your battery. Your aircon and stereo will slowly use power, so if you are stuck in traffic and concerned about your range, it may pay to turn off the aircon and open your windows. And, you won’t have to turn the music up to drown out the sound of an idling petrol engine. 

We’d advise avoiding traffic if you can — public chargers will be busier if more cars are out on the roads than usual.

To see in advance what chargers are in use so you can divert to one that isn’t, 

 tracks whether a charger is out of action due to faults or required servicing.

Whether you’re at home or on holiday, charging overnight is the cheapest and (usually) most convenient option. If you’re staying at a hotel, motel, bed and break, powered camp site, or with family, you may be able to plug in at your accommodation. 

To charge overnight for 8 hours on a standard 3 pin socket will add about 80km to your range and cost the bill payer about $4. We suggest you be a good EV ambassador and offer to cover this cost. Just don’t forget to bring your charging cable and make sure you plug in safely!

Safely charging your electric vehicle at home | Worksafe

If overnight charging isn’t an option, look for opportunities to top up on public chargers while out and about at cafes, malls, supermarkets etc. Note that there are various types of public chargers around – DC chargers are faster and cables are provided, and AC chargers are slower and cheaper (sometimes free) but you may need to provide your own cable – and this cable may differ from the one you’d use to charge at home.

The joy of the open road can be even more thrilling when you’re travelling on the solar, water, geothermal, and wind power that generate as much as 90% of Aotearoa's electricity. Enjoy the ride and the impact you’re having by not being reliant on fossil fuels. 

Happy and safe travels from the team at Octopus Energy.

Taking Your EV On A Road Trip

The Carbon Tracker gives you up-to-date data about the level of carbon emissions from the electricity generation across New Zealand, throughout the day. Carbon emissions are the emissions of carbon dioxide or CO2. Carbon dioxide emissions are the main driver of global warming and climate change (Source: 

With the Carbon Tracker you’ll be able to get a better understanding the times of day when carbon emissions are high (or low) and how to best reduce your carbon impact.

You can find the new Carbon Tracker in the ‘Usage & Rates’ section of the 

 which is optimised for mobile and desktop devices.

If you want to take an active approach to reducing the carbon impact of your electricity use, then the Carbon Tracker is for you. 

You can use the Carbon Tracker to understand whether the level of carbon emissions from recent electricity generation is 

. If reducing your carbon impact is important to you, you can use this data to shift electricity usage to times of day when the carbon emissions are low or medium.

We all need electricity throughout the day, and reducing usage isn’t always practical. Everyone likes dinner on the table at a reasonable time! However, depending on your circumstances, there could be electricity use you could shift to another time of day with a bit of planning or creativity.

Examples of electricity usage you could shift include, when you do your laundry, charging your EV, and heating and cooling your home. 

What do the levels in the Carbon Tracker mean?

By engaging with the Carbon Tracker you can make small changes to your household usage, if that’s practical for you, to reduce the amount of electricity you use when carbon emissions are high.

Our Carbon Tracker is split into three levels to indicate the amount of carbon emissions at a given time:

In New Zealand, we are fortunate to have an abundance of renewable sources that generate most of our electricity. Over 2022,

 87% of electricity generated came from renewable sources

. The main renewable sources include geothermal, hydro and wind. That means when carbon emissions are considered high at any given time, up to 70% is still renewable due to geography, resources and weather conditions.

Once using the Carbon Tracker, you may spot patterns in the day that help you shift your usage, habitually. 

Generally, our pricing structure also reflects this change in carbon emissions throughout the day with our Time of Use pricing: 

So you are often paying less when emissions are low.

How are the carbon emissions calculated in the Carbon Tracker?

The Carbon Tracker provides market data from the 

 provided by Energy Market Services (EMS) up to the last half hour. The em6 is New Zealand’s electricity data hub that provides access to market data, including generation and carbon emissions indicators. It is considered the go-to resource for generation data in New Zealand.

Our Carbon Tracker is another way Octopus Energy is making it easy for customers to access affordable power as we transition to a clean energy future.

Our new Carbon Tracker

Who are BlackRock and why are they investing 2 billion in New Zealand’s electricity infrastructure?

The energy transition is all about eliminating CO

and other greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, like petrol, coal and gas by switching to lower carbon sources like electricity or possibly hydrogen

Fossil fuels release large amounts of carbon dioxide and, as we’ve seen over the past few years, they’re dependent on international supply chains at the whim of geopolitical risk which makes them increasingly expensive and harder to obtain.

We need to build new electricity infrastructure to support increasing demand, this chart from Transpower illustrates the level of demand growth expected by 2050. In parallel new sources of demand like EVs can be used flexibly and more smartly (i.e avoiding charging them at peak when) to get more out of the infrastructure we have.

That said, we have a lot of new energy infrastructure to build… EV chargers…local network system upgrades…new generation farms…a national grid with capacity to carry more electricity to and from more places. This all requires money to catalyse the building. Boston Consulting Group wrote a report detailing that $42 billion of investment  would be required over the next decade.

BlackRock announced the launch of a fund raise for a $2 billion fund dedicated to ramping up investments in wind and solar generation, as well as battery storage and green hydrogen in New Zealand.

BlackRock is a massive investment house. They essentially take people’s money and invest it in businesses for a return. BlackRock invests in all types of companies, including fossil fuel companies.

BlackRock has already invested in New Zealand companies by purchasing shares in them or providing them loans, this includes energy sector companies: SolarZero and Contact Energy.

Fundraising is simply putting the call out for other individuals and investors to put their money into a bucket that Blackrock will then use to invest in renewable energy investments in New Zealand.

Apparently the NZ government provided feedback about its policy settings and the type of investments that would be necessary to reach a 100% renewable electricity grid. 

However, it will not directly contribute any money into the fund, which BlackRock is raising itself. 

More money dedicated to decarbonisation is a good thing, but there is a bit of a process for BlackRock to go through in order to raise the funds and then find good opportunities to invest in. By good it will mean projects with a reasonable financial return.

BlackRock, the Government and New Zealand (as a place for renewable investment) had a balmy day in the media sun….. let’s hope it translates to more solar panels, EV chargers and wind turbines more quickly.

Our new Carbon Tracker

How do I use this tool?

How can I shift my usage?

What do the levels in the Carbon Tracker mean?

How are the carbon emissions calculated in the Carbon Tracker?

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