Zero emission cars.

Some Prius owners aren't even waiting for Toyota. They've jumped the gun, converting their cars to plug-ins simply by adding a second storage battery, which increases the distance you can drive between recharges, and an extension cord that you can plug into any wall socket to recharge the batteries from the electrical grid. This lets them push the car's already exceptional gas mileage in routine daily driving of 46 miles per gallon to more than 100 miles per gallon.

GM is in the game, too, with its Chevrolet Volt. This plug-in car is essentially an electric car with an auxiliary gasoline engine that generates electricity to recharge the batteries when needed. It boasts an all-electric range of 40 miles, more than adequate for most daily driving. GM reports that under typical driving conditions, the Volt averages 151 miles per gallon.

Here at home, Hyundai and Mitsubishi are racing to be the first carmakers to bring plug-in electric cars to New Zealand. Ross Blade, who developed the first retro-fit electric Getz in Melbourne plan to set up a production plant in New Zealand based around a projected sales base of more than 200 vehicles a year. Hyundai say the electric Getz has a range of 120km on a single charge and top speed is 120km/h.

This new car technology is matched by new wind-turbine technology, setting the stage for an automotive-fuel economy powered largely by cheap wind energy.

While many residents in some places, such as Cape Cod in the US, take a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) view of wind farms, the opposite is true in much of the rest of the country--including the farm country that extends from Texas north through the Dakotas. There, it's a PIMBY (Put It in My Backyard) issue. In farming regions, competition among communities for these wind farms, and the jobs and tax revenues that come with them, is intense. Each wind turbine on a farmer's land typically brings a royalty of $3,000 to $10,000 per year, with no investment on the landowner's part. And the farmers can continue to graze cattle on the land.

The potential for wind energy is high. That's because wind wins on almost every count. It is carbon-free, cheap, abundant and inexhaustible--and it is ours. No one can embargo the supply, the price never changes, and wind farms can be built in 12 months.

New Zealand needs to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Plug-in cars running on cheap wind energy is the best way to break our addiction.