Having misjudged the level of congestion on the Auckland motorways this week I arrived too early for a meeting at the hotel that sprang up in the carpark at Auckland Airport a few years ago.
Needing to kill some time, I pondered on the fact that there were, right now, hotels erupting in the carparks at Wellington and Christchurch airports as well, and I examined a van with a label informing me that it was "emission free".
Musing about electric vehicles led me to think about the need for ongoing education.
The electric van I saw was some sort of Nissan from the Japanese car company that seems to have taken the lead in the production of electric vehicles.
The most common electric car you see in Auckland is a Nissan Leaf, only available as a used import at present, though there are electric BMWs available new and for a while the old Ponsonby fire station was serving as a dealership for the expensive Tesla electric cars.
I have some interest in electric cars as a family member with a long daily commute has a car approaching retirement, but in a broader sense, there is no doubt that the huge advantages that electric propulsion now has in areas like cost, simplicity and economy over the familiar internal combustion engines means we'll be looking at a predominantly electricity propelled national vehicle fleet in a few short years.
This is obviously a trend to be welcomed, electric vehicles are quiet and non-polluting, but many occupations are going to change or disappear altogether.
The Chinese city of Shenzhen, adjacent to Hong Kong, attacked its air-pollution problem by replacing all of its 3000 buses with electric vehicles capable of travelling 250km between charges.
In China last year 115,000 electric buses were sold and from a position where there were almost no electric ones five years ago, these now comprise 20 per cent of China's bus fleet.
(As an aside, this makes you wonder why Wellington chose this year to replace its electric-powered trolley buses with diesels when pure electric buses were obviously available).
This shift from fossil-fuelled vehicles to battery power will be a challenge to New Zealand's education system as literally thousands of motor mechanics and other internal combustion engine specialists will have to retrain as some kind of electrician, retire or find a new job.
Led by now Minister of Finance Grant Robertson, the Labour Party mounted a major study into the future of work which concluded that as many as half of the jobs we rely on for our current well-being won't exist in coming years.
It was this policy exercise which largely led to the heavy emphasis on education in Labour's 2017 election policy.
Past history tells us, however, we should not panic as long as our education system can absorb and retrain these displaced workers.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the two dominant modes of transport were railways over longer distances and horses for local movements.
In 50 years, internal combustion vehicles on improved roads heavily reduced the role of the railways and almost completely put the horse business out to pasture.
The changes facing us now will be much faster.
About five years ago I regularly took photos of my kids and grandkids and went to the photo shop, killing an hour while my films were processed and printed.
Now I just point my cellphone at my favoured ones, click, email and print.
A whole industry has disappeared.
• Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
