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Car buyers to be charged up to $3,000 or given a discount of up $8,000 under proposal to make cleaner cars a more 'realistic choice' for NZers

Car buyers to be charged up to $3,000 or given a discount of up $8,000 under proposal to make cleaner cars a more 'realistic choice' for NZers

Purchasers of imported vehicles could be charged up to $3,000, or given a discount of up $8,000, under a proposed government scheme aimed at cleaning up the country’s vehicle fleet.

The Ministry of Transport is consulting on a proposal to introduce a ‘Clean Car Discount’ from 2021.

This would see fees and discounts applied to both new and second-hand vehicles that enter the country for the first time, depending on the amount of carbon dioxide they emit.

The scheme would only be for ‘light vehicles’ - small and medium cars, SUVs, vans and utes.

Fees/discounts would be greater for new imported vehicles than for second-hand ones.

The buyer of a new Ford Ranger – New Zealand’s most popular car model – would for example be charged between $2,250 to $2,750.

Other popular new cars like the Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi Triton and Holden Colorado would incur fees, while the Toyota Corolla, Suzuki Swift, Mazda CX-3, Honda Jazz and Toyota Prius would receive discounts.

On the used-vehicle front, the Subaru Legacy, Toyota Camry and Range Rover would be among models to incur fees, while the Hyundai i30, Nissan Tiida and Mazda Demio would receive discounts.

For imported vehicles, the greatest available discount would be $2,600 while the highest fees would be $1,500.

Vehicles with a recommended retail price of over $80,000 wouldn’t be eligible for discounts.

The second proposal the Ministry of Transport is consulting on is a ‘Clean Car Standard’.

This would require vehicle importers to reduce the average emissions of the vehicles they import by meeting annual emissions targets.

These targets would be phased in, with suppliers being required to reduce their average carbon dioxide per kilometre emission from where it’s at now at 180 grams, to 161 grams by 2022.

Stricter targets would be introduced each year, reaching 105 grams by 2025, after which time governments would set new targets.

The 2025 target is consistent with the average vehicle fuel efficiency achieved in the Japanese vehicle fleet in 2014.

Because the Clean Car Standard and Clean Car Discount only apply to vehicles entering New Zealand for the first time, they would apply to about a quarter of vehicle sales.

This is how the Ministry expects the costs to be spread across society:

Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter said: “This is about making cleaner cars a realistic choice for more New Zealanders – by reducing the upfront cost of electric, hybrid and fuel efficient vehicles when sold in New Zealand for the first time.”

She said requiring importers to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles would also give climate-conscious consumers more choice.

“These policies are expected to save the country more than $3.4 billion in fuel and result in fuel savings of more than $6,800 over the lifetime of an average vehicle,” Genter said.

“The cars, utes and vans we use every day are also the fastest growing source of harmful climate pollution and account for nearly 70% of our transport emissions.”

Transport contributes to 20% of emissions in New Zealand and is by far the country’s fastest growing source of emissions.

The public has until August 20 to make submissions on the Ministry of Transport’s consultation paper.

Industry response

The Motor Industry Association is supportive of government intervention on the demand-side, but not the supply-side.

Its chief executive David Crawford believed the most powerful policy available to the Government was to “influence car purchase decisions”.

He said the Clean Car Discount “sends a very clear signal to consumers and will over time increase demand for lower emitting vehicles”.

As for the Clean Car Standard, Crawford was unsupportive, saying: “While the Government believes that we are not importing the best models, the reality is that new vehicle distributors simply supply what people buy.

“Policies aimed at controlling supply into our market are generally not favoured as they impose artificial controls that often distort that market.

“They can also create a range of unintended outcomes such as people holding onto older less safe and more polluting cars longer than they would otherwise and it is also likely to lead to price increases for all new vehicles entering the market.”

Greenpeace's response

However Greenpeace pointed out that up until now New Zealand has been one of only a few developed countries without vehicle emissions standards.

Climate campaigner Amanda Larsson liked the proposal to make electric and hybrid cars cheaper, but wanted fees for dirtier vehicles to be higher.

"It’s disappointing to see the maximum fee for highly polluting vehicles capped at $3,000. Would this make someone buying a more than $100,000 gas guzzler reconsider?

"In France, for example, the top penalty is more than three times greater than what the New Zealand Government is proposing.”

Larsson also wanted the Government to go further by implementing a timeline to phase out diesel and petrol vehicles like Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands have done.

She said that for the bulk of our cars to be electric by 2050, nearly all vehicles entering the fleet would need to be EVs by the early 2030s.

Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority's response

The EECA, which is a government agency, also made the point that most other countries already have efficiency standards.

Its chief executive Andrew Caseley said New Zealand’s light vehicle imports are among the most emissions-intensive and least fuel-efficient in the OECD.

“The lowest-emission vehicles available are EVs, but so far only 0.4% of the vehicle fleet is electric, with about 14,500 EVs currently registered in New Zealand,” he said.

“Overseas experience shows financial incentives work best for encouraging people to buy EVs, which currently cost considerably more than their petrol or diesel equivalents.”

Caseley said the proposed changes wouldn’t change the fleet overnight, but would push things in the right direction.

“All low-emission vehicle imports turn over quite quickly in the market through second-hand sales and that’s how you start the transformation,” he said.

He also maintained higher demand for EVs in New Zealand could encourage suppliers to improve their offerings and lower their prices.

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167 Comments

One immediate, and probably unforeseen effect, will be the delay in purchasing/retention of older vehicles. In my own case, the good-for-another-200K diesel SUV is gonna get run right into the ground.....

So the average age of the vehicle fleet, already world-leading, is gonna get a boost.

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That's also not too bad in terms of carbon footprint. The construction of new vehicles has a signficant carbon cost. Running them for as long as is econoomically efficient is a good solution.

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Did no one tell the government about the drop off in new and used car sales?

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Keep running your old car for 2 more years then replace with a low emission vehicle vs buy a medium emission vehicle now and run for many years? I suggest the former gives the better long-term result.

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The Greens and Taxcinda will not be satisfied until we replace our fleet of metal horses with real flesh and blood ones . ..

.. but think about the practicalities of it , after 5 or 10 years your EV batteries will need replacing at the cost of many $ 1000's .... whereas if your horse needs replacement , you can fire up the BBQ , invite the whole neighborhood , and chow down on prime cheval .

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Not correct as per usual Gummy. I just bought a 4 year old Nissan leaf on Saturday so congrats you will be paying for part of my (RUC) savings over the next 29months. PS It has 92% of the battery left, so not likely to need replacing for a 10 probably 15 years, in that time I will have saved 20~30k even paying RUC.

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We just bought a 6yo one at a sharp(ish) price but with a measly 63% SOH battery that made everyone run for the hills. For our 20km or so of daily school runs it will last for years, at which point the choice of new/used/aftermarket batteries will have expanded and the price fallen further.

Meantime we get a car that has all the safety features you can shake a stick at and a near-instant cabin heater. And the old Subie gets taken out maybe twice a week for the longer trips and no need to replace that one just yet either. Win win.

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From your one car? hardly....

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"Vehicles with a recommended retail price of over $80,000 wouldn’t be eligible for discounts."

Expect to see it gamed, like Tesla did with the Canadian market. Create a version with a software locked battery capacity which meets the price target (but real world unusable due to no range), sell it with the discount/rebate, then charge an extra fee for unlocking the true battery capacity.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/01/tesla-sneaks-past-canada-ev-incenti…

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That's not really a bad outcome though is it - more low emission cars on the road

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It is if it normalises the cost of new vehicles to $79,999 with a crippled feature set.

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The fact that EVs are already available cheaper than this disproves that. This will only affect premium models - how many people spend $80+ on a new car?

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Tesla don’t need to game or, their model 3 starts in the mid 70s.

I saw an article the other day saying a Tesla costs about $16 to get the equivalent of a tank of gas.

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They do need to game the system if they want to sell Model X and Model S and give their customers a govt funded discount.. and they will if the system lets them.

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What about a subsidy for not having children?

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Totally agree, have 0 child 10% off PAYE, have 1 child 5% off PAYE, 2 children break even, 3+ children 5%+ on PAYE.

Biggest saving on CO2 and CC is 0 person has 0 demand and hence 0 impact.

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Have 3 children but don't have the mother(s) name you as the father..

Oh no, its a tax on women...

Fat chance of that idea going anywhere.

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But you'll live longer therefore using more. (Fact. kids lead to early grave).

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My grandmother (6 kids) and great-grandmother (5 kids) beg to differ.. great grandmother got her telegraph from the queen and kept going another 5 years, grandmother is 94 not out...

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We are not exactly up to our eyeballs in people like yours

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This is an outright subsidy. Subsidies do nothing but distort the natural market, introduce evasion & rorts. Subsidies eventually, collapse into their own vortex. It has taken a bit longer than expected, but this government is now back to the track of the previous Labour lot, telling us how to live. We know, we say, you do. Next off the shelf, control of your hot shower and use those light bulbs at your peril.

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If your policy is to re-direct the market then its a success in this case. Consider that by subsidising wind development wind is now cheaper than coal fired plant so its cheaper for you as a consumer and cleaner.

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Except, and of course as wind is not dispatchable (try ordering 2Gw of windy electrons for the 27th August, between the hours of 0400 and 1159), there has to be spinning reserve available at all times to maintain voltage and frequency stability. In NZ this is in fact the baseload generation: hydro, geothermal, thermal - a real-time picture always available here. As the sad example of the SA wind expansion has shown, diffuse, unreliable generation sources are exquisitely vulnerable, and have to be backed up by old-fashioned Heavy Iron. And in the absence of reliably electricity supply, kiss goodbye to energy-intensive industry, jobs, GDP and local economies in general.

Which description includes all metals......think Tiwai Point, if t'was fed by wind alone, then count the days if not hours until the inevitable occurs and all potlines freeze up.......

Hey ho, back to the Stone Age.......Frozen, Act III

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The theory is vehicle to grid electric cars can solve a lot of that problem. When electric car batteries spare capacity, people fill up only to their required usage. People start purchasing more power when price drops due to variable over supply and then spare capacity is sold back to grid when variable supply under performs causing prices to rise.

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hmm, so losses in charging the battery, then losses in discharging the battery into the grid. Sounds silly to me. Easier to just spin down more hydro when the wind blows and leave water in the lakes.

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Bit behind on the thinking there Waymad. NZ has a unique battery in our hydro size to maintain the voltage. And also that the ev cars in numbers provide a national resource.
There is a problem of course with fogie thinking

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No KH - you display no understanding of the system. The Hydros, particularly on the Waikato are near maxed out matching the swing from day to hight. Wind variability is covered by the thermals. Why Whirinaki gets fired up.

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Thanks, Chris. Nothing like actual engineering knowledge to inform a debate. And I repeat: the Unreliables - wind and solar - rely exclusively on the frequency and voltage stability provided by traditional heavy-iron synchronous generation sources. In NZ, this is hydro, gas and coal: in Oz, it's brown and black coal, plus Snowy if the lakes allow, plus gas to a small degree, plus SA's wonderful Tesla battery, the latter capable of supporting SA demand for all of a few minutes. Check AEMO's real-time dispatch overview, here.

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Waymad - the situation is worse than that for SA. Because wind gives no stability to the grid, AEMO has decreed that they need to keep 3-4 GTs on at all times and dispatch wind off. And the SA consumer has to pay for all the lost MW of windfarm owners. That is why their electricity price is so high and all the electricity using industries are fleeing the state.

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Chris Morris. You neglect to address the car batteries I mentioned. Whats your view on that. Here in Dunedin Nissan Leafs abound. (used imports $10K to $25) The university is looking at a plan where they will provide free electricity to staff carparks, provided they can also extract power from the assembled leafs when needed. When there are a lot more folk with solar on the roof and a battery back of the garage, there is a hell of a lot you can do in a shared network system.
It's going to be a very different system, requiring legal, ownership and physical network change. Hard to work through our political system and a bit hard to think if about you are invested in the old. But doable.

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Reply at end - the logging in stuffed up the order - sorry about that.

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Wind will only ever be supplementary to other generation. But reports I have read from experts in the field suggest with NZ's hydro baseload, we could support up to 20% wind power generation without significant changes to our energy infrastructure.

When the wind is blowing, the hydro stations run less. This essentially gives battery backup as we have less water draining out of the lakes. It is a win-win for our electricity market - new, cheap, renewable supply which gives us greater security of supply for when it doesn't rain.

It's not like now we have a safe supply. When the lakes start to run dry, electricity prices skyrocket and we all get told to shower less. More wind makes this less likely.

It is also not like we don't have the capacity for wind. There are heaps of wind energy projects which have full resource consent that haven't been built. Check out Castle Hill windfarm which would be 6 times bigger than project West Wind in Wellington (which when blowing, which is almost all the time, supplies enough electricity to power almost all of Wellington city). I heard from someone on the project that the only reason this didn't go ahead was the temporary CEO had a bach in the Wairarapa so canned the whole project. So kiwi.

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... I'm submitting to the Greens Party that they introduce a bill in parliament requiring all vehicles to be fitted with a small wind turbine on the roof ( in the case of motorcyclists , atop their helmets ) ... to harness natures free gift of hot air as we hurtle along our highways at a blistering 30 kmph...

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Blobbles
You are also in a fact free zone. The hydros aren't batteries. They need to stage water because they have discharge consents to meet on the bottom hydro on the river. Often when wind ramps up, they back off on the GTs and vice versa. Look at the generation data. There are also generators on grid support to try to even out short term fluctuations and for trips, but that is different circumstances. The wind turbines around Wellington are often not generating according to the generation data - only about 45% load factor. They might be turning in light winds, but they are sucking power out of the grid to move and stop their bearing races brinelling. West Wind would only supply Wellington when wind is blowing flat out - about 1% of the time. Learn the difference between rated capacity and output.
The lakes run low in periods of calm weather - no NW winds to fill the lakes. Lots of cold calm frosty nights and foggy days. No wind or solar generation during those periods. Go back to what occurred at end of June.
The minimum load in the North Island is around 2000MW at 3-4am so the 600MW of wind is already over the 20% (which is really only supposed to be 10% as we haven't enough high inertia units on the grid) and there are already grid management problems occurring.
So overall, I don't think you got anything right.

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@ blobby. "we could support up to 20% wind power generation without significant changes to our energy infrastructure." But we can and we will change our energy infrastructure. Just gotta get organised.

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You are proving you don't know what you are talking about, KH. Tell us the engineering and costs involved, not the childish Teeshirt slogans.

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Supplementary? not really, yet US utilities are putting in wind with battery hand over fist its the cheapest option, strange that in the land of the capitalist and in the mid west its being done so fast at the same time the grid is even more stable odd, eh.

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Their grid is stable because of all the nukes and thermal plant on it - apart from California where CAISO says there are big issues. And that is where they have shut down the thermal plant and import power from as far away as Canada.

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Except geographically spreading the wind farms means there is no need for a 2gwh lift. US utilities are putting in wind with battery as its cheaper than anything else, in fact it creates jobs. PS failures of baseload plant is also quite possible and even more frequently due to Climate change effects.

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There is plenty of generation data showing the synchronicity of wind in NZ, Australia and Europe. The US is putting in windfarms because of the subsidies. Stop those and no windfarms. The batteries are put in for the same reason. No-one has installed grid sized batteries. Go through the references here. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-imposs… With regards PS outages, what thermal plant failures have occurred from climate change?

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We already subsidise petrol by ignoring the environmental externalities

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Have you heard of externalities?

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Works if we all had time to do the jobs to support our lives that other people's kids are doing for us.

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People who choose not to have children are free-loaders. Who's children are going to be providing you with food, services and other essentials and paying the taxes to keep you out of the gutter when you retire? People who do have children - particularly middle class children who on average go on to be large net tax payers are massively subsidising those that don't. 10's of thousands of hours of unpaid child rearing effort, to provide the state with a citizen 'asset' that will, on average, pay upwards of $1million in tax during their life.

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The importation of people and the state sponsored breeding scheme are the biggest drivers of green houses gas increases. Emissions via cars are just one example of what occurs with more demand.

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Exactly, this is scratching the surface.

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So tariffs are good?

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Tariffs on high emissions, yes, buy a hybrid/EV and you get to pay less, so an "anti-tariff" its your choice.

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It's not an "anti-tariff" it is called a subsidy. Looks like middle-class welfare and penalising the poor to me.

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How is it penalising the poor?

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Cars with higher emissions are likely to be older and, therefore, cheaper. The cost of a used car has just gone up. Given that the only way for many of those at the bottom of the rang to get to work and other activities is by car, it is now more expensive for them.

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"The cost of a used car has just gone up."

You realise that energy-efficient used cars will receive discounts under this policy as well? And they're cheaper to run in both mileage and maintenance.

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Some cars will get a subsidy and some will get a tariff. Older cars are not likely to get the subsidy and more likely to be hit with a tariff. You realise that older cars are generally cheaper and the ones that less well-off people will buy?

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Well you are wrong.

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Excellent.
My used ICE vehicle just increased in value!

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So the increase of RUC for 16000km per year (as the average km travelled) for a BEV is >$1000 per year so in effect its a tax increase over 1/2 the BEVS life (or worse). Further anyone who has a BEV for Green and/or economic reasons already will be penalised in Jan 2022 for that by paying RUC, it makes so much sense, not. At that point since a PHEV is also classed as a EV under NZ law they will have to pay RUC so a cheaper "self charging" hybrid could well be cheaper to run annually if you do low kms. So potentially swap out zero emission vehicles for low emission ones makes so much sense, and at the same time remove the main reason to buy an older but still zero-emission BEV for lower income ppl. Sorry is this a Natioanl party policy or a CoL one?

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I just made a submission around the perverse incentives of RUCs. Under current structure a fuel economic car will be cheaper to run and pay less tax than a EV.

Petrol car: 5l/100km, petrol at $2.20/l pays 11c/km (of which about 5.5c/km tax)
Electric car: 5kWh/km, electricity at 30c/kWh = 6c/km. Add RUCs at current rate of 7.2c/km gives a total of 13.2c/km of which 8c/km is tax (RUCs plus GST on electricity)

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The current RUC scheme will be re-worked once electric cars are brought in. At present the lowest-rated RUC vehicle class is "not more than 3.5 tonnes". A Nissan Leaf is about 1.5 tonnes so there's a lot of room to move there.

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Sounds like another desperate and ill-conceived money grab dressed up as doing public good.

If they want a revenue stream like this would it not be easier to simply charge a higher annual registration for the 'less desirable' cars?

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How you come to that conclusion is beyond me.

Don't the total additional charges on high emmission vehicles equal the total subsidies on low emmison vehicles???

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You don't need logic if all you want to say is "this guvment sucks".

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If they are going to put something in to encourage us to own low-emission vehicles then all I am asking them to do is to introduce it efficiently. Taxing and subsidising is not the way to go. Adjust annual registration and drive the right behaviour.

Do you follow that logic?

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So, just tax by another name, there is not much else in a govt's box of tricks other than taxation or relief from it, in some form or other

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Some get taxed more, some get taxed less, I have no issues with such a system. You carry on with your gas guzzling SUV subsidising me, I am saving a packet every year, thanks!

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That's what Leighton Hosking told me and by golly, I've had a gut's full!

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You really believe this will be revenue neutral?

Anyway, not really my point.... what I was highlighting is there is already an annual registration process they could simply augment with a car emission overlay to increase (or decrease) the annual registration. Why go to the bother of introducing a whole new vehicle import tax/subsidy scheme. Its completely inefficient.

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Who knows, perhaps there will be such a rush for EV’s the subsidies will cost a fortune. The problem with registrations is people have made their purchasing decisions based on current charges. I can only imagine the squealing about additional taxes if they added another levy, besides it would tend to hit the poorest hardest. Much better to give people a nudge in the right direction at the time of purchase.

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I think Andy the new incentives are directed at the new entrants to the fleet. Changing the mix of new entrants rather than penalise the existing.

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Forget this climate stuff while China is building all their thermal power stations. I think there is a useful benefit here though if the big heavy top heavy and dangerous (big heavy thing vs small car crash) SUVs and Utes are penalized/ discouraged. And especially so if the cancer causing diesels are targeted.

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... good point.... we all witness a multitude of SUVs clunking around our suburbs .... whereas a minivan would be cheaper and far more fuel efficient ...

Folks in town do love their huge suburban tractors ...

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Which is the main point of the "penalty" system. SUV pays more, BEV owner like me pays way less, climate change impact, less win-win for me.

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I 100% support this policy to help change consumer purchasing patterns. It will take a lot of time but I can see it reducing the need to import so much petrol. This policy is so much better then just increasing petrol tax and hoping that it will change demand. Does anyone know a good calculator that can help you find savings of car A vs car B???

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if the government is trying to change from petrol to electricity then why sell off 1/2 the power generators they owned, they could have offset any lost petrol tax with extra profit.
the facts are this is a small change and wont change NZ buying patterns very much.
if they wanted to make a big leap forward target corporates to make is extra attractive to lease electric vehicles for company cars which go on to become NZ's second hand car fleet

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Sharetrader. The Crown gets more in dividends on its 51 per cent holding than it did when it owned the generating companies outright.

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And who is paying for that?

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Electricity users - but given the significantly improved return from superior capital management as a result of partial privatisation, less than would have been the case previously when the real cost of capital was not previously properly accounted for and inefficiently managed, causing taxpayers to incur a hidden subsidy. Also to be included in any comparison is the capital released for infrastructural spending through this ownership restructure. That is a borrowing cost to the taxpayer which has been avoided.

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For superior capital management read: "lucky that interest rates are so very low now".

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Not at all. Interest rates being high or low does not alter the core proposition that more efficient capital management delivers relative lower end user costs.

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I've got an even better idea to reduce oil imports. Jack up the taxes on ICE vehicles to $20k per vehicle and increase fuel taxes by 50 cents/litre. That'll drive a real shift into EVs in a hurry. We might have to import a few million tonnes of coal for the extra power capacity required, but that can be hidden with a bit of creativity by Stats NZ and then we can be well on our way to carbon zero heaven!

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Lol, Saving the Kakapo by killing Orangutans.

It should be Labours real slogan.

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Nope, no coal importing needed, just lots more wind farms.

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The government will be subsidising the increased importation of new cars. Each of these new cars will require a very large amount of energy to create and then ship to NZ - more global emissions will occur as result of our government's subsidy program. So this policy (if it works as intended) will be causing more pollution and accelerated climate change.

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Most of our "new" cars are the worlds cast-offs. And replacing 20year old engines that were less efficient when they were built, let alone now that they have have 20years of running, and poor maintenance, with something 5-6 years old from Japan, Singapore, or the UK will probably mean we end up standing still overall, instead of going backwards.

But we will need to look at the car disposal company processes, from what i've seen the old cars are not disposed of in anything approaching an environmentally friendly way.

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It is a cynical carbon offset con attempt. Tax high emitting cars while at the same time pumping up carbon heavy tourism and migration. Create an illusion you are serious about Co2 and you'll get the support of the social media and advocacy journalism set who drive public opinion. Genter delivers a pious lecture about global warming while at the same time her colleague Roberston cackles that overshooting treasury's immigration forecasts is great. Hypocrisy.

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Unfortunately, sadly I have to agree with your use of hypocrisy. In my opinion we saw a lot of this with the previous Labour lot, especially the two leaders. This government is fast adopting the spots of their predecessors. Not saying all governments are not so inclined, but again your use of pious, hits the nail head rather squarely.

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So would you prefer they kill off the tourism industry? Or just do nothing?
I think what they are doing is the best way to achieve a serious decline in CO2 emissions without really affecting the economy.

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The proposition was that this is another example of coalition hypocrisy, not a critique of the merits of the scheme. It may well be reasonable on some levels. The greens rail against fossil fuel use but are profligate air travellers, Ardern cripples our hydrocarbon industry knowing this will increase emissions, Peters promises to address our migration caused infrastructural overload but stands idly by while a torrent of new high carbon footprint migrants pour in. That's hypocrisy. And no, this change will not achieve a 'serious decline' in our Co2 emissions while the coalition continue the reckless population growth policy of the previous administration.

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I don’t think you would find a political party in NZ that does not suffer hypocrisy. For example the National party that stands for a strong economy -based off people selling existing houses to each other. Or the ACT party that is liberal - unless it upsets the great people of epsom.

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You have to be sure that the EV is actually an improvement over a good ICE over it's lifetime.The EV requires a lot more CO2 to make, because of the battery. Recycling CO2 costs of the battery need to be included; they could be reused for solar storage, but recycling at end of life seems only theoretically possible.
There is supposedly enough consented renewable energy to power all vehicles electrically in the future(does that allow for population increase? ), but at the moment we have around 20% shortfall in renewables made up by burning coal and gas, possibly more in dry years.
"Using the average CO2 output of the European electricity network, Ernst concluded that an electric car using a 60kWh battery made in Europe would have to travel some 700,000 kilometres (435,000 miles) before it is “greener than an average petrol car”. However, Ernst also says that a fully renewable European grid would reduce the EV’s CO2 lag to just 30,000km (18,640 miles)"
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/analysis-just-how-green-are…

So it is all largely greenwashing and a great boost for overpriced EVs; the answer is to greatly increase public transport; and stop immigration so limiting energy demand.

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Yeah, i hear this BS every now and then.. it depends what you define a lifetime as.. if you make it short enough, then an EV looks worse. Make it realistic and a lifetime of clutches, oil (engine and trans) changes & filters, brakes, spark plugs, catalytic converters, drive belts etc all add up and the ICE doesn't look so good. oh, and the ICE emissions.

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No the study has been taken out of context and was poorly done. It took worst case un-realistic points for BEVs v at best ones for ICE.

eg,
https://innovationorigins.com/correcting-misinformation-about-greenhous…

Even the professor corrected himself,

http://blogs.ulg.ac.be/damien-ernst/electric-697612-km-to-become-green-…

Mind you also consider they talk about an Audi 95kwh luxury SUV. This bloated monster isnt the norm for a efficient and cost effective BEV its a monstrosity that deserves to fail.

NB if you want to avoid their anti-ad blocker,

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/news/analysis-just-how-green-are-electr…

Most affordable BEVs are, in 3 years in NZ generally CO2 neutral on a 100% renewable plan like I am on, should last me another 12 years after that. NB Already batteries are 60% recyclable commercially with 80% quite possible quickly if needed however since EV batteries are lasting so well there is not much point in investing yet in plant at scale, in 10 years, yes and at that point 95% is very probable.

Public transport will never be there for rural NZ, forget it, decent range affordable BEVs are the most practical way to go.

"stop immigration so limiting energy demand." totally agree on that one, 100%.

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Just another government mandate making people poorer. In reality it's going to be an ugly outcome
https://economics21.org/inconvenient-realities-new-energy-economy

Perhaps we should be reading

How Facism works; the politics of Us and Them.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Fascism-Works-Politics-Them/dp/0525511830/re…

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This is total BS it wont make the slightest difference to anything other than as Andrew say's make people poorer.

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It's a revenue neutral policy so it will only make some people poorer

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Learning curves (roughly 20% price drop for every 10x production increase) mean that there is about 40% price drop coming as electric cars go from current 0.5% to 50% of global market. That $60k Model 3 is going to drop to $35k within about 10 years and electric cars will become the cheapest option in all segments of market (from smallest to biggest). That is going to happen even without inevitable improvements in battery tech that reduce their cost even faster. Subsidies at this point are just unnecessary, market economics will get us there in quite short order anyway. If the government is going to spend money then spend it on increasing renewable generation in time for the coming demand, not wasteful virtue signalling like this.

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They aren’t spending money. It is revenue neutral.

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Simplistically true. Though will make cars more expensive and reduce demand and tax take as a result. Also less fuel tax revenue and more money needed for charging infrastructure - and need to expand generation too. What is the net cost of all those flow on effects to govt?

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The price of houses is elastic and so would they be for cars. Pitched at what people can afford. So expect the base price of electric cars to rise.

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Cars are a globally competitive market, with 10-20 big players, there will be cheap and good electric cars in the marketplace as manufacturers have to compete on price, and the huge investment in IC powertrain development that has hitherto served as a market quality differentiator is mostly going to disappear with the modular simplicity of commodity electric drivetrains from tier 1 suppliers. Easily led ostentatious fools will continue to pay 2-3x as much for little more than a different badge on the front but only because cars are in large part fashion accessories.

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standard tesla model 3 is $73.9k so would fit under the discount criteria

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and get the ceramic red paint job, $79k...

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If every body buys an EV,then we can house the homeless in all those unwanted vehicles.
How about the Govt fixing some major problems we have with accomodation,housing,health etc because i doubt if any homeless person is concerned about this policy.

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This is a good point. I read an article about ride sharing cars that have a high use that travel 0 km. Some people use the cars for phone calls, working on their laptop, eat a meal, sleeping, charging phones and so on. We could rent the cars to the homeless for a gold coin.

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A better idea would be to free up all new and used imports (like it used to be - zero restrictions) and then require one pre-2000 vehicle to be deregistered for every one registered. It would take 200K old bangers off the roads each year. I would also drop the WOF requirement for vehicles 2010 onwards

The governments idea is crazy as some people need large vehicles - and the new ones are more efficient and safer than the old ones.

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There is a sliding scale dependent on car weight - heavier cars can emit more than lighter ones and still qualify

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And meanwhile Tourism has overtaken dairy as NZs number one export.

Should we assume all these folks are rowing their way to our shores or is it just incredible hypocrisy to preach clean air on the roads while pushing for more airplanes to ferry people here ?

Are all these EVs still going to be transported to NZ using ships spewing toxic fumes ?

The world has to change.

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The bureaucratic incompetence concerning air travel is so bad that the Environment Minister David Parker has been lobbying for China to use NZ as an air travel hub to link to South America. https://nzchinacouncil.org.nz/2019/06/hon-david-parker-speech-to-buildi…

Our government thinks emissions from tourist flights to NZ are considered the responsibility of the tourists or the airline or their fuel supplier. And each of those parties to the tourism equation blames each of the others. Emissions due to international tourism are officially too hard to be counted in NZ's emissions, simply because it is too complicated.

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Response from Genter when asked on today's AM show how the government will pay the subsidy if the tariffs don't cover it:

"oh... you know...." [hands waving madly trying to explain how to pluck money from mythical money tree]

Asked again, "how you going to pay for it?"
Genter talks over the presenter about who do we think should pay then...?
Interviewer - again: "but how you going to pay for it?" [x at least 4 times asked in total]

Then, interviewer: "does Cabinet know about this?"

Genter [arms still waving madly trying to deflect hard questions], "yes of course, blah, blah..." at which point I had to switch off due to one of the most heinous displays of ministerial incompetence and lack of detail around how this will be paid for.

Kind of sums up everything about this government right now.

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Can’t they just adjust the Tarif / subsidy to suit?

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This is what she said would happen

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Yes but the intention is "lovely" and Jacinda has a great smile

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If we're making a collection don't forget Paula "Oh, haha, I haven't read the report" Bennett either then. Collect the full set.

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Sir Winston of St. Peters will mount up on his electric charger and lance it fair & square in the middle of the green shield with the three point plug coat of arms.

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Dog & Lemon Guide founder Clive Matthew Wilson says the government ought to focus on getting us out of our cars by massively upgrading our pathetic public transport system ...

... pah ... what does he know , he's only a car industry expert ... back to the Greens and Greenpeace ... what do we do , oh wise ones ?

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Ah...I did hear of some work being done on public transport. Now we just need to replace the NIMBYism around the main routes with their nominally espoused libertarian values.

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She's not a deep-thinker, just another slogan-repeating cheer-leader for the low-information left.

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You could try telling the truth, she said it would be adjusted as needed to remain neutral.

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Worth noting that the proposed emission standard lags Japan's by 10 years. This allows Japanese imports up to 10 years old to not be penalised under the scheme. This probably covers the bulk of NZ's car buying.

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I'm hoping this coalition government follow Air NZs lead , and ban newspapers from our cars ... well , lounges really ... but with so many folks forced to sleep in their cars by exhorbitent rentals , their cars and lounges are one and the same ...

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You've stumbled onto an elegant solution. The govt as Air NZs majority shareholder should direct the company to make its lounges available for emergency accomodation for the homeless.

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Planes sitting idle on the tarmacs at night could be used , too ..

. and we could lobby Air NZ to only fly during daylight hours , thus saving electricity on using night lights ... must run that past the Greens first ... sure they'll give it the green light ...

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Actually my last experience of Koru (by invitation,) they (the homeless) are already scouting it. No doubt our greenies have direct access to the Green Lantern, that should help. Just like many years ago on that BBC series Apocalypse something, the defence minister discovered he was Superman, and that enabled the government of the day to balance the deficit by scrapping the entire defence budget.

ps. It was “Whoops Apocalypse” and strangely enough quite a few of the cabinet ended up being locked up in padded cells because they each thought they were the Green Lantern.

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Don't worry, folks. The big diesel trucks are exempt (until, of course, the Gubmint has its next brain-fart) so yer Supermarket supplies, delivered to a SKU by B-trains, are safe.

For now....

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I wouldn't be so confident. Government subsidised and run soviet style GUM stores could be built alongside railway lines, slashing the number of large trucks.

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... why is the whole world extolling the virtues of EVs , when every engineer I speak to or read of recommends we go the hydrogen car route ?

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Batteries have won. End of story. At this point hydrogen transport is just bureaucratic inertia from senior managers and academics that have built careers on expertise in it. Recently a battery company CEO said batteries at ~USD $50/kWh in 5 years. That's

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Still a turbocharged RX-7 with blue flaming exhausts might be considered the ultimate in environmentally friendly transport.

https://www.mazda.co.nz/innovation/environmental-initiatives/hydrogen-r…

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... wow ! ... nice car .. hydrogen powered huh ... sssshhhh ... dont let Mr PDK find out , hes busy going round in circles... doing donuts on his donkey ...

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GBH - that's unsurprising, I've often though you must move in the wrong circles. Hydrogen is a vector, not an energy source. That can be said of electricity, of course, but we spend less energy supplying electricity than it takes to supply hydrogen. In EROEI terms, it's a loser. It also needs a greenfields infrastructure. Forget it, and change your circle.

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Happy for you , Mr PDK , to run around in little circles ...

... the Gummster likes to operate across a wider plain , unrestricted by circles ...

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Not this engineer.....hydrogen is still birth job, BEVs have won.

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What about the disposal of the extremely toxic Lithium batteries from all of the green cars? Fewer than 5% fo all lithium batteries are recycled.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/10/electric-c…

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Sssssshhhh ! .... we're not interested in the practical realities of EVs .... we just want to feel good ...

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cue increase in EV owner road rage as charging stations don't keep up with increase in car numbers.

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. . Genesis will have to fire up the coal burning at Huntly to produce enough electricity to match the increased demand from EVs ..

But hey . . let's not get down by the practical realities here guys... let's just feel good.

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This still reduces emissions. Because ICE are only 30% efficient it is still more green to burn coal and charge an electric car than use petrol/diesel.

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Barely, Huntly is only 38% efficient. But a moot point really, Huntly is mostly past its use by date and the two units out of action won't be recommissioned.

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... and , the efficiency of the internal combustion engine has increased remarkably over the past few years . . ..

50 mpg was only achieved by smaller motorcycles a few years ago , but now many European family cars reach this ... some of the diesels go beyond 65 mpg...

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a) Not true EV ramp up wont be that fast just add wind as needed, its cheapest and marginal cost b) Huntley is going gas so no, no coal.

But lets not let the truth get in the way of extremists like yourself lying shall we.

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Next car was going to be full electric anyway, well before this wee boost. But the current diesel RAV has another 300K kilometers in it yet.

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We live in a emergency remember, tell all tourist to stay at home

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. .not only a climate emergency ... but also a roading emergency .... as the current government has shut down many of the much needed road infrastructure projects that the Gnats had started ...

And yet Taxcinda has increased the excise on petrol 3 times in just 18 months .... the money goes where , please ?

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Into the NZF Re-elect Me Pleeease Provincial Slush Growth Fund.....

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Does anyone have some evidence that the carbon emissions reduced by an EV is greater than the emissions produced by extracting and manufacturing those batteries?

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Thanks for that

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In NZ, Norway, Iceland and BC, EV's are a no-brainer because of the grid-source. Elsewhere? But there's another way to look at it - we are 13years past Peak conventional oil, and working our way down the list of less0desirable options. Having a battery vehicle in 10 years time. will be the difference between driving and walking. Most folk have lost sight of fossil energy supply issues - but the US military obviously haven't.....

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That's going to create some ideological conflicts among some folk. If the US military moves toward alternative energy sources, how will certain US politicians and pundits continue to pretend there is no need to develop alternative energy sources.

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It won't change - war is won by the packers of the biggest punch. So they needed Iraq, they need Venezuela and they would rather keep Iran from potential antagonists. This is the end-game now - there are no other big puddles left and already the shonky SA is the only swing-producer on the planet.

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How about coming into the real world powerdown. The USA is a net exporter of oil/gas and hasn't even touched the big shale basins.
The UK has shale deposits of a similar size to the big US ones.So peak oil is a long way off - only you use semantics to hide the fact.

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How about coming into the actual world. a) Only the best shale plays and the best parts of them at that have been drilled as the rest are way worse. Even these wells die in about 3 years, mostly produce Ngas, and produce very little oil (so not much petrol from them). b) investors have lost a shed load of $s gambling in that game.

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With electric vehicles it depends where the electricity comes from. If it's from a coal or gas fired station then it's no better for the environment than a petrol: https://www.eea.europa.eu/signals/signals-2017/infographics/range-of-li…

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Good initiative, can't come soon enough. I'm a small business owner, driving a 2l diesel commercial vehicle, because there were no suitable EV alternatives at the time I last purchased. Will be great when more manufacturers produce EV utes and vans. These price signals might help with that over time ...

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There are 2 or 3 possibilities right now in vans but they only do about 180km between charges. Around town though that is a practical morning run, quick charge 30~45mins over lunch and then another 150km in the afternoon til tea time, very workable in some circumstances.

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Emission reductions are far less than assumed for the simple reason that NZ’s marginal generator 24/7
is thermal plant.

Marginal increased loads from EV’s by definition are serviced by the marginal generator - the last and most expensive dispatched.

Charging at night makes no difference - thermal generators run 24/7.

EV’s charged with thermal plant have a significant emissions profile.

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JB. Marginal emissions. ? What about marginal generation. And distributed generation. In the next few months I will have a roof producing more energy than I use. The reality is the entire system needs to adapt. Ownership, legal, market controls and physical networks.

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KH - yet again you show a total lack of knowledge. At 3am in the morning, how much will your solar generation be charging your car? This time of year, even with a Power Wall, how much will your solar provide - that is when the heaviest load is. And you will still be freeloading off the grid to give you frequency and voltage stability unless you go totally offgrid.

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Solar does the day load ie air con in summer as an example, or running heat pumps in winter. Want night? no worries we have lots of wind, geo and hydro.

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If you are an engineer as you earlier claimed, your absolute lack of knowledge about how things work and what they cost is stunning.

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STAMP DUTY

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KH -= how much power do you think you can get back out of a car battery on a standard extension. And How do you think drivers will feel when they can't get home because their battery is flat.
The dream is by people who don't know what they are talking about.

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A car battery is generally about 25kWh of usable power, especially as they are only supposed to be used 20-80%. How many cars needed to cover the 1000MW ramp up?

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Why do you need a 1gwh ramp up? many US utilities are now putting in wind with battery hand over fist its cheapest to run and install and grid stability is improved.

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They aren't and it isn't.

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Why would you use a standard extension to power your house FFS? You would use the chademo fast DC port if you wanted that capability. Why would drivers just stop somewhere and fast charge?

No its you who have no idea what you are talking about. Fossil fuel will leave us inside of 30 years so we have to leave it first or suffer the consequences.

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How about you actually read all the thread before you comment, right back to KHs original comments. And then tell us how much it would cost to rewire existing suburbs, especially those with 40A wiring and average 1.5kWh/ house transformers to take the heavier electrical load?

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