1921: Christchurch Electric Car Fleet

March 24, 2024

By AHNZ

By 1921 Christchurch had a fleet of 48 private and council electric vehicles. Every one of them paraded for this photo that year. A good city for electric cars because Canterbury is flat and had a good power supply.

The local MED offered discount rates for charging batteries overnight and this encouraged more users. This involved a garaging/charging service for all these vehicles so all these drivers must have been a fairly tight club who started and ended their working days together. The government’s big brick garage was in Manchester Street.

Was the electric vehicle really ready for market in the 1910s? We never got to find out because the true running costs faced by the consumer were subsidised by government. New Zealand Government built and owned Coleridge Power Station which provided the power for Christchurch’s fleet. The City Council added another layer of market intervention by re-selling off-peak power and providing night storage and expert technical oversight at their charging station.

The entire scheme lasted only about 3 years. It turned out that petrol was the superior power. But perhaps after a few years it turned out that batteries and their charging was a poor business proposition after all? Such economic viability didn’t really matter when it was other people’s money.

Christchurch City Council appear to have withdrawn their electric vehicle subsidy abruptly in 1920 which left owners who hadn’t already on-sold their electric novelty holding the bag when the music stopped!

History appears to have repeated when Labour 6.0, in 2020, created the “Clean Car Discount.” Users of regular vehicles were taxed (“The Ute Tax”) and the money (minus government administration fees of course) was given out as a subsidy to those buying electric cars. This scheme was axed by National 6.0 as of 31 December 2023. In the meantime the deliberate market distortion saw an excess of cars imported than the schemers ever planned for: “The scheme is facilitating an increase in the number of EVs entering the fleet we did not expect until 2027,” Wood said. Ref. RNZ

Christchurch City was in the grip of a radical Left-Wing government during its electric flash in the pan too.

“Due to the combination to cheap Lake Coleridge power and flat terrain, Christchurch was the most enthusiastic user of electric vehicles. In 1915 the city introduced a cheap rate between 10pm and 7am for vehicle battery charging as a means of providing off-peak loading. This was so successful the council built an electric vehicle garage in 1919. Two years later 48 private and council vehicles were being serviced, but thereafter the number steadily declined in the face of competition from cheaper and faster petrol-engined vehicles.” – Renie (1989)

“FOR SALE—AT COST CHRISTCHURCH CITY COUNCIL offer for Sale, new Limousine Electric Brougham, capable of running 80 miles on a single charge. The Council will garage the vehicle, supply current and do all electrical adjustments for per year. For price and particulars see ELECTRICITY DEPARTMENT Corner Armagh and Manchester Streets – Christchurch” – Press (1919,) Papers Past

“Between 40 and 50 commercial electrical vehicles are operating in various parts of New Zealand at the present day, mostly with Edison storage batteries. The Christchurch City Council has just passed plans for tho erection of a garage to accommodate and supply energy for tho storage batteries oi 00 vehicles. The borough councils of New Plymouth, Napier, Gisborne, Dunedin, and Invercargill also have in use electric vehicles.” – Bay of Plenty Times (1919,) Papers Past

“Mr Stark, the Christchurch city electrical engineer, is making every effort to push the use of the electric vehicle, and meeting with great success in doing so…Christchurch City Council is erecting a very large brick garage for the housing and charging of these vehicles,…” – Feilding Star (1919,) Papers Past

“The exceptional facilities enjoyed in Christchurch, owing to the proximity of the Lake Coleridge hydro-electric power station, have had a favorable effect on the development of electric trucking in that city, and the Christchurch City Council has just passed plans for the erection of a garage to accommodate sixty electric vehicles.” – Southland Times (1920,) Papers Past

“The Electricity Committee reported that several trial lead battery vehicles were being maintained for different owners at the council’s garage. It was known that more than one firm in town contemplated selling such vehicles, presumably with the intention of leaving the buyers to arrange for their subsequent charging and maintenance. The committee was of opinion that, as the available space in the garage would be fully required by Edison battery vehicles now on order, and in view of the much greater care and attention required in the maintenance of lead batteries, the council should intimate that it did not propose to undertake the maintenance and charging of such vehicles.” – Sun (1920,) Papers Past

“We had two government incentives for purchasers of EVs: a clean car discount (payable as a rebate) and exemption from Road User Charges. Here are stats for new EVs for Jan and Feb 2024: “8.86% of new passenger cars were EVs (down from 27.2% for all of 2023)” If you follow the link below you can see a surge in purchases in Dec (before the clean car discount ended). Road User Charges are set to be introduced soon.” Shane Morrow comment, Ref. EVDB<

“Imagine we lived in a world where all cars were EVs. And then along comes a new invention, the “Internal Combustion Engine”! Think of the sales marketing: A vehicle half the weight, half the price that will almost quarter the damage done to the road. A vehicle that can be refuelled in 1/10th of the time and has a range of up to 4 times the distance in all weather conditions. It does not rely on the environmentally damaging use of non-renewable rare earth elements to power it, and uses far less steel and other materials.” – internet meme (retrieved 2024)

Dr Henry Thacker had defeated the conservative Henry Holland for the mayoralty in 1919. For one thing, tastes had changed about war and the martial culture Holland was associated with and Thacker was against. Ref. 1918: The Storming of King Edward Barracks, AHNZ

Christchurch swung left toward Doctor Thacker who had made his name as the committee chairman of the Lake Coleridge electric power scheme. He was also a car nut and “always had a new and expensive car, and employed a uniformed chauffeur to keep it in immaculate condition.” He is the prime suspect for the electric car scheme that started with his term in office and ended with it. Ref Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Newspapers also record many advertisements and disguised editorials involving a close relationship between the Council and Edison batteries. While the electric car scheme lasted it was this company that stood to profit greatly.

So, this photo in 1921 represents Christchurch’s electric fleet during its last great swan song. It may be that the writing was already on the wall for the doomed technology as entropy overtook the machines and the government pulled the fiscal plug. Perhaps it was a show of denial of reality as a reaction to growing criticism? Perhaps the owners of these vehicles hoped that by putting on such a show they would be able to impress the ignorant and on-sell their vehicles to some suckers before they knew what they were getting into?

Owning an electric car in 1920 or 2020 was pretty cool. Owning one 5 years after that was and will be tragic.

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Image ref. Municipal Electricity Department (MED,) Ref. p82, Power to the People, Neil Rennie (1989,) colorised by AHNZ

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