Electric vehicle owners now have more reasons to visit the Coromandel following the installation of two new charging stations on the peninsula.

Spark NZ has installed electric vehicle chargers in phone boxes located at Prescott's Garage on Kopu-Hikuai Road/State Highway 25, and on Hikuai Settlement Road, just north of the Whangamata turn-off.

Transition Town Thames' John Leeman charging his electric car at The Kopu Café south of Thames. Photo: File

The new chargers are free to use and Spark estimates a 30-minute top-up will provide enough juice to cover 20km. While there's no time limit, people are asked to be considerate of other users.

There are now three charging stations on the Coromandel following the installation of a commercial charger at the Kopu Café in December. Filling up at the café costs $2.50/per hour.

Community advocacy group Transition Town Thames (T3) is also planning to install two more charging stations in the Thames township.

T3 member and electric vehicle owner John Leenman says the goal will be to develop a network of charging stations around the entire Coromandel.

'T3 is sponsoring an electric vehiclecharging station for Thames, which will be installed once a suitable site is located. We are also hoping to find a suitable place for an electric vehicle ‘Fast Charger' in Thames,” he says.

Spark has now converted two other phone boxes into charging stations – one in Waitakaruru and the other in Waiwera – and has two more are in the pipeline for Waipu and Wellsford.

A network of ‘Spark Plugs' station will eventually be created around the country, but the company is starting with phone boxes near Auckland as it has the largest concentration of electric vehicleusers.

Electric vehicles have a range of 120km to 140km, and take between 30 minutes and 5 hours to charge.

There are a little over 1,000 EVs on the road in New Zealand currently, with the number doubling every year.

For more information on how to use the new Spark charging stations visit: www.spark.co.nz/plug