Electric Commuting

On the weekend, I arranged to have lunch with a friend this Tuesday. Then I saw a picture of him alongside an article with the heading “Electric Ute for Commuting” on Monday in our local newspaper. It turned out that my friend, John, is a bit of a trailblazer. He is probably the first person to go to work in an electric vehicle in the South Island of New Zealand.

Of course, his economic and environmentally friendly form of transport was a talking point of our lunchtime conversation. And I was quick to get out the camera for a photograph.

It costs about a dollar a day for the electricity. John’s wife, Jennifer, did the sums and said that the savings in petrol costs would pay for the three-wheeled utility vehicle in a couple of years. John makes a 44-kilometer return trip each day.

He gets a laugh from some people and encouragement from his environmentally conscious work mates. And he says that most importantly, it has passed the embarrassment test with their four children; as one of them said, “I think it’s cute.”

For the newspaper article click