I note the whinging has started from EV owners as their fixed price deals for recharging their Nissan Leafs at home come to an end.

Some claim the new deals will be 50% higher. How can you possibly be surprised?

Did you think you would get away with it forever?

For a while the more deluded lauded the road tax loophole, until it got closed as well.

The power companies see EV owners as a new revenue source.

As petrol may or may not become a commodity not worth bothering about, at least for cars, car dealers will be licking their lips that a product three and a half short weeks ago they couldn’t shift for love nor money, may have a wait time as the desperados clamber in for something that unshackles them from the tyranny of oil.

But equally if it becomes a “thing”, and it's way too early to say whether it is or not, but if it does, power companies will not believe their luck.

An almost entirely new revenue stream, not just a whole new series of customers, but old customers paying way more now that they are hooked in.

We must remember power prices are rising because of renewable investment and basic line maintenance.

The Commerce Commission has allowed big increases for you and me to upgrade infrastructure so maybe the way to see an EV is not about the cost, although it is still cheaper.

But it's more about the convenience and despite the doom merchants, we are no longer running out of power.

In fact, in one of the countries more upbeat stories is we have seemingly transitioned, or will, pretty well in terms of base load and meeting ongoing, if not growing, demand.

It's why Sri Lanka has turned the neon signs off and told office workers to kill the air conditioning – they don't have Clyde or the Taupo geothermal. They need oil.

This won't be a moment for public transport. They've blown that. It's too unreliable. The current burst of patronage will vanish as quickly as it arrived.

But EVs might be having their moment. Once you are in one you may not go back.

That critical tipping point might have been provided by a war.

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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has suffered her first major setback with a bruising referendum result.

Voters emphatically rejected the judicial reform, which proposed separating the careers of judges and public prosecutors, and splitting the magistrates’ self-governing body into two sections.

Italy Correspondent Jo McKenna told Mike Hosking the reforms were a bit muddy, and looked like a grab for power by the Meloni Government.

She says many Italians didn’t want the constitution to be touched in the first place, and on top of that, there’s a lot of disillusionment about Meloni’s close relationship with Donald Trump, particularly among young people.

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Jenni Smith is entering a brand-new era with the release of her long-awaited debut album.

The Kiwi pop country musician has been a part of the New Zealand country music scene since she was 12 – her first single, ‘T-Shirt’ hitting #3 on the official NZ Singles Chart.

Since then, she’s taken home the Songwriter of the Year Award at the 2018 NZ Country Music Awards and had a couple more charting singles, including her most recent, ‘Mirror’, which currently sits at #1.

“They tagged me on Instagram, and it just blew my mind,” Smith told Mike Hosking.

‘Mirror’ is the first single of her debut album ‘Girl Next Door, a collection of diary-style songs three years in the making.

“I’ve been working on it for three years, so exciting is like, a lesser word for it,”

While there are artists out there who create rapidly, making and recording artists in very short periods of time, Smith told Hosking her timeframe didn’t come from overthinking, but rather from necessity.

“I’m an independent artist,” she said.

“So I have to find the time to record, but also fund it myself.”

Smith has been honing her craft over the years, graduating a few years ago with a degree in songwriting from the University of Auckland.

“I definitely learned a lot in my time studying songwriting,”

“I think it made me think a little more in depth about what I’m writing – it arguably made my songwriting process slower, because I go back and tweak things multiple times, but I think it paid off.”

‘Girl Next Door’ is releasing tomorrow, and as part of the launch, Smith will be performing some intimate shows in Auckland, Christchurch, and Wellington.

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