I drive a battery car. This is one of my favourite stops. It answers the question: how will people out in rural areas charge their cars? It's about one third of the way between Napier and Taupo on a highway 130km between towns. They installed two chargers along the highway to fill in the gaps between towns, just so people with shorter range EVs don't get stuck. It has three outlets, including type-2 three phase AC 44kW. The goal is to have chargers no more than 70km apart on national highways.
@adam While the current charge stations are mostly 50kW , 300kW stations are being installed now in New Zealand, cars with 100 to 200kW charging are common now. 150kW charging gives 50kWh in 20 minutes, enough for 300km. So stopping for 20 minutes one every 200 miles is pretty acceptable. Of course you can stop for 10 minutes every 100 miles also. If your battery is large enough, it’s not inconvenient, especially with mixed over night charging and DC fast charging.
@adam Also, it’s cheap. Low maintenance cost for the car and low cost to charge. Charging at home is about $3 for 100km, while petrol vehicles are $7 to $20 for the same range. Then DC charging is about $10 per 100km.
@adam At 50kW stations about 15 minutes for 120km. But you only need to do that when you are away from home. At home 30 seconds to plug in, and 30 seconds to unplug. Plus you don’t need to go out of your way. If I am on a long trip, generally I like the stops. But I recommend that people buy cars with at least 250km range in New Zealand, and 320km range in other places, or more, due to the driving distances and charge station intervals. Long range cars can be used like petrol cars.