January 2025 Newsletter

We hope you enjoyed a great holiday season.

We will be showing the Windrose at the Transfleet Trailers/Allied Petroleum Bombay Truck Show on the 18th of January at the Bombay Rugby Club. Thanks to Visy Global Logistics NZ for offering space in their display.

We took the Windrose for a bit of a tour down to Wellington via Mt Maunganui and back to Auckland via New Plymouth and the Mount again. We travelled 1689km using 1232kWh to give range on a charge (unloaded) of 998km. Windrose offer a 1000km duration unloaded in their advertising. For a run that included the Kaimais three times, Transmission Gully twice, the Desert Rd and Mt Messenger we are pretty happy with the result.

We took the opportunity to charge at the impressive Z Energy Waiwhakaiho drive through station. 590kW in one session may be a New Zealand record.

Let us know if you would like us to bring the Windrose to your base to view.

It seems two trailer on-highway testing will start soon in Australia.

An Ecotricity video of Gavin Shoebridge and me going for a drive in the Windrose. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnmuu9aXH3g

So far we have only driven the Windrose in “eco” or “normal” modes. One day we will find a reason to try the “power” setting. Maybe in an acceleration trial against a diesel truck as in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEG0Agf3tPo

Autonomous last mile delivery trucks are now out testing in China. This is a Zelos Z8 with 210km duration and 1500kg payload. The local China price is around NZD22,000

A short video is here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/SLN-ROR0HSI

We have to thank our suppliers for their ongoing support. In New Zealand for staff training and technical help Mr Su from Windrose, Jason from Mantall and Gao Chao from XCMG.