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Govt commits to introducing 'Clean Car Import Standard' this year, giving importers until 2025 to slash the emissions profiles of the vehicles they bring into the country

Govt commits to introducing 'Clean Car Import Standard' this year, giving importers until 2025 to slash the emissions profiles of the vehicles they bring into the country
Transport Minister Michael Wood

The Government will require importers to ensure the mix of cars they bring into the country has a 40% lower emissions profile than is currently the case by 2025.

It on Thursday announced it would pass legislation this year to introduce a ‘Clean Car Import Standard’.

Each supplier will be given a different target, reflecting its fleet. Suppliers will have to progressively work towards the 2025 target, which is that the average import emits 105 grams of CO₂/km - down from 171 grams.

Classic cars, "agricultural vehicles" and farm equipment like tractors, harvesters, mowers, toppers and bailers, will be exempt from the scheme. 

NZ First blocked the introduction of the Clean Car Import Standard in the last term of government.

The Government said New Zealand is one of two countries in the OECD that doesn’t have such a standard. It said Europe reached the 105-gram target in 2020 and Japan in 2014. 

The Government made the case: “The Clean Car Standard will increase the supply of cleaner cars, making them a realistic choice for more New Zealanders.

“It will also save New Zealanders on average $6,810 at the pump by having a more fuel-efficient car.”

The Government maintained this fuel cost reduction would disproportionately benefit low-income earners.

But ACT's Transport and Climate Change spokesperson, Simon Court, had a different view, saying tradies and large families who don't have the option of buying expensive EVs will end up paying more.

He maintained the standard would also result in a "perverse lock-in effect" where people hold on to older, dirtier vehicles for longer.

“Treasury’s analysis of the Government’s 2019 Clean Car Standard suggested it wouldn’t have a significant impact on emissions," Court said.

Motor industry says timeframe is too tight

The Motor Industry Association argued the speed at which the target needs to be reached is “the most aggressive and severe in the world”. It urged the Government to push the target date out to 2030.

“The 2025 target date does not allow time for model development, vehicle sourcing arrangements and does not recognise that for many distributors in New Zealand their model choice is tied to the Australian market,” its CEO David Crawford said.

“With no similar policy required in Australia, our market, which represents just 0.018% of new vehicle production in any one year, is too small for manufactures to develop models just for us.

“We also urge the rules to be the same for both new and used imported vehicles. Giving used imported vehicles softer penalties will lead to an increase in older, less safe vehicles entering New Zealand.”

Feebate scheme on the cards

Transport Minister Michael Wood said he was also considering “options for an incentive scheme to help Kiwis make the switch to clean cars”. Announcements can be expected in coming months.

NZ First also blocked the introduction of a feebate scheme in the last term of government.

Spotlight on fuel

Separately, the Government announced it had agreed “in-principle” to “mandate a lower emitting biofuel blend across the transport sector”.

It will consult on how to do so and make an announcement before the end of the year.

Air New Zealand CEO Greg Foran said, "While we see hydrogen-powered or electric aircraft as viable options for our domestic and short haul network, being able to access Sustainable Aviation Fuels at a competitive price will be very important for us when it comes to decarbonising our long haul operations.”

Decarbonising buses

Wood said, “We’re also committing $50 million to help councils fully decarbonise the public transport bus fleet by 2035.”

Buses purchased after 2025 will have to be zero emissions.

Politics

The swathe of announcements was made ahead of the Climate Commission on Sunday releasing draft advice to the Government on what climate action it needs to take. 

Climate Change Minister James Shaw said, “The window of opportunity we have to address the climate crisis is closing fast. Reducing emissions from transport will need to be a priority..."

He credited the work of former Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter, who said the Green Party was delivering on its commitment to cleaner transport, as per its Cooperation Agreement with the Government.

ACT said: “Rather than meddling in particular industries or picking winners, the Government should be ensuring that we have a functioning Emissions Trading Scheme which encourages people to reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost.”

For more on the Clean Car Standard, see this document.

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119 Comments

Are Labour desperately trying to roll out as many announcements as they can to distract public attention away from the housing catastrophe?
Having said that good moves. There is one thing that they need to address, and it may be difficult.
There is a loop hole in the FBT rules that favors utes. Not surprisingly a lot of company cars have been replaced by these bloody enormous gas guzzling dual cab utes. The annual cost of the FBT is huge and any one off subsidy to the purchase price would have to be enormous to change this behavior. They would just about have to give the cars away to make any impression.

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This isn't quite the thing that everyone thinks it is. Terry B has written about this. It's now less of an issue given that there are new FBT rules for small companies now anyway which change what you can claim if you want a vehicle to be exempt. I assume Terry's own links are fine given he contributes here!

https://baucher.tax/is-that-ute-really-exempt-from-fbt/

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Not sure why they (TB/AB) have left the following out of their FBT articles - highly relevant when talking about 'tradies utes' I'd think...

https://www.ird.govt.nz/employing-staff/paying-staff/fringe-benefit-tax…

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“The 2025 target date does not allow time for model development

That is patently rubbish, as already stated in the article, EU has already reached that level in 2020, we should be able to implement it right now, not wait another 5 years

But NZ first were right to block the ridiculous Feebate system that would put money directly in the pockets of the importers. Just bite the bullet, make the changes, and everyone benefits in the end.

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How does it directly put money into the pockets of importers?

Without feebate, they import a car, pay $20,000 for it and on-sell it for $30,000 to a consumer, keeping $10k in profit.

With feebate, they import a car, pay $20,000, government gives them $2,000 feebate, they on-sell it for $28,000 to a consumer (as government requires the feebate be passed on) and they keep $10k in profit.

Either way the importer gets $10k in profit and the consumer gets a $2,000 subsidy in the feebate case.

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"The 2025 target date does not allow time for model development"

Rubbish. I agree RCD. NZ is THE dumping ground for old dirty technology cars. And it will still be in 2025, because our emission standard is lagging behind the rest. But we are soooo good and clean here in NZ. Yeah right!

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First thing I picked up too! ...not enough time to develop models. And BTW UK and others have ruled no new internal combustion engines from 2030. So go figure. Oh and they als reached carbon neutral new build housing standards for the same period. Could take a lesson there too.

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Good to finally see some action from govt on this after decades of hand sitting. Pragmatic and well balanced it seems.

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the US pushes climate change polices to hinder other countries to develop and therefore always to be No.1.

China pushes climate change polices to advance its technology development, reduce the reliance on fossil fuel, and therefore change the current US dollar hegemony.

NZ pushes climate change polices for absolutely nothing but a show-off a seemingly high (and very very stupid) moral ground.

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Did you come up with that rubbish yourself Xingmo?

China's emissions are the largest in the world and getting bigger.

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Maybe it's in his Little Red Book?

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That's one theory Xing. I lean more to it being a growth initiative, climate regulation is going to require huge investment in infrastructure and that's good for the global economy including China.

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Add a letter; try learning rather than leaning.

The fossil requirement to do what you so glibly advocate, is mind-boggling, not available, and would require triage (considering we are extracting full-noise from a descending-quality source). Just apply some thought to the physics; it once took the removal of 10 tons of 'overburden' to get at 1 ton of copper. Now it needs 400 tons to be removed, for a ton of the best-of-the-rest copper. At the same time, the oil energy used to remove the overburden has gone from gushers like Spindetop, to having to fracture rock. The EROEI of that has gone from 100:1, to sub-17:1. And that is what is doing the removing. See the compound problem? And it takes energy - lots of it - to recycle materials (re-purposing is better - that's my specialty) which is why we mostly don't.

And we're looking at needing to change more than 50% of our infrastructure, ultimately nearly 100%. Not going to happen. And if you think it will create growth, ask what the growing pile of digital expectations is going to be cash-in-able for?

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I'm not going to debate this with you ever, I'd rather orbital sand my urethra with 20 grit paper.

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Just ow.

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Avoidance comes in many forms

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Good comments thanks.
The complex interconnections you describe permeate through so much (almost all?) of our modern world.
Consumers take for granted they will get water when they turn on the tap, get meat and veg from the supermarket, things to work at the clock of a switch. The complexities that enable all these things are rarely examined or understood.

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Good.

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Extending the RUC holiday for pure EV’s would help. Also, can the Government please ensure that departments given EVs have the means to charge them at the office. I’m talking from experience here with a ChargeNet station blocked for hours until the Customs people came back to collect their car.

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EVs should have been paying RUCs since day one. Not to be paying them makes a lie of the NZTA lead statement on their website RUC page- "Anyone using New Zealand’s roads contributes towards their upkeep." If you can afford to buy a vehicle you can afford to pay the running costs. If you can't afford to pay the running costs you can't afford to own it and should never have bought it.

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Trucks don't pay their weight in terms of maintenance impact on roads. The RUC system effectively subsidizes them already.

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Obviously you are not a truck operator. Last time I looked, a logging truck and trailer with 8 axles is paying $7.00+/km.

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I don't see anything beyond $430/1000km (43c/km) for that axle configuration on the NZTA RUC page:
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/licensing-rego/road-user-charges/ruc-…

The RUC for an 8-axle truck & trailer is 5.7x that of a light vehicle. The relationship between road damage and axle load is exponential (NZTA estimates exponents between 2 and 6 in a 2017 paper). That's not paying your share.

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“ If you can afford to buy a vehicle you can afford to pay the running costs” - do ICE vehicles pay for all the environmental damage, noise, and health issues they cause?

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Does anyone pay for all the externalities they cause?

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"It urged the Government to push the target date out to 2030."

Half the developed worlds cities will have banned petrol and diesel cars completely by 2030, and this guy wants to wait until then to meet a standard that Japan, which supplies most of our vehicles, met in 2014!

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So announcements coming in 'the coming months' which will be effectively Budget time, so nothing before May; no FBT exemptions for EVs, for instance, or incentives. Which will then take time to be implemented.

Climate 'emergency'.

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Incentives work. So, kiwi's who use electric cars of any type should be given the same per-unit rate for electricity as Tiwai Pt. About 5 to 9 cents per unit of electricity!

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We pay 11c/kwh for night rate EV electricity. Cutting it to 5-9c would make next to no difference to anything. It's already so cheap (~$8 of electricity for 500km) that half of cheap is nearly irrelevant. The point above about the RUC holiday is much more substantial.

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Who is your electricity provider? Is it a residential or business account because that's cheap.

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Helpful how there's no actual rates published whatsoever on that page.

Flick Electric actually publish standard rate charts for all places they service: https://www.flickelectric.co.nz/pricing# Scroll down to the "Get the kWh nitty gritty in your region's pricing schedule" which is near the bottom of the page. On the next regional page, there are links at the bottom of the Fixie and Freestyle sections that go to the rates.

Note that Flick actually publish the wholesale rates that the power distributors are charging, so you can use this information to get an idea about the mark up that other providers are adding on - Flick explicitly show their own markup as one component.

Anyway the Fixie figure for Christchurch as of October 2020 is 11.811c per kilowatt hour off-peak for a Standard user plan including generation costs (excluding GST, which is apparently the norm for quoting these prices).

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Yeah meridian don't make the pricing particularly transparent, maybe because it's a bit of a maze to navigate with all the different networks, but it's available:

https://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/assets/Uploads/515d3ff89d/ED-9335-EV-R…

flick could be a good option too, as you say, but you need to know what you're getting into, and be prepared to ride out the highs and lows.

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Flick have a fixed rate plan and have for a while now, called Fixie. That's the rate I quoted. No riding of highs or lows.

The rates quoted by Meridian on that pdf include GST so quite a bit lower than Flick I quoted, however this is their 'day/night' plan, which I assume means they are charging 'day' rates on weekend days.

Flick have off-peak power (in Christchurch) from 9pm Friday to 7am Monday, so all weekend is at their off-peak rate (which is a little higher than Meridian's 'night' rate).

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Fair about flick's fixie.

Just depends on where you are I think. Flick fixie for is us 19.4c off peak so a lot more. And of course it all depends on your day/night balance. Generally a bit of a nightmare tbh.

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The rate Tiwai are paying for their electricity does not include transmission costs. At time of writing the spot price Flick users will be paying at Haywards is 14.9c. Add onto this distribution (local) transmission (national), retailer margin, and GST.
https://www.electricityinfo.co.nz/

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A Suzuki Alto emits 99kg/100km.
Sure it's a gutless thing but it is actually an excellent commuting car.
The 3 cyl engine has huge character. Plus it is all a typical small family needs in my view.

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"There was no escaping the fact that the Suzuki Alto came up short for safety. Even when it was on sale, a five-star Euro NCAP safety rating was so common that a car receiving just four stars was enough to raise eyebrows. So that means it’s particularly disappointing that the Alto only managed to score three stars."

Pass.

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Curiously, size doesn’t matter much, the Suzuki Swift is around 130 gm but so is a full size European saloon(Peugeot 508).
The government is apathetic on most climate issues, including vehicle emissions.

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A typical small family that never helps out. i.e. transporting the kids to cricket or car pools to golf...

Those typical families that end up relying on those of us with larger cars to cart them and their kids around...

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I can't see a decent collapsible stroller fitting into the back of one of those either. A used Leaf has no emissions, is only marginally less affordable and still offers far more space and better safety stats as well as far superior performance, with the added bonus of lower operating costs. That people think something like an Alto is realistic for most families should terrify you, because if that's what people think is reasonable then that's where the bar will be set.

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I have a lot of respect for the leaf second hand market.
If the government wanted to promote EV they would immediately replace the Govt cars with EV and in a few years dispose of them into the second hand market. That may sound suspect but I saw a report on a Chevy Volt that had done half a million miles and hadn’t even replaced its brake pads.
Fings ain’t wot they used to be...

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Battery wear is the problem with EVs, not brake pads.

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The volt is a hybrid but the report said the range was still 80% from memory.

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Battery wear isn't much of a problem on EV's with proper cooling. Lease compaies in the UK report less than 5% range loss after about 150,000km.
Model S/X seem to be doing pretty well. The smaller battery modern EV's will last much longer than the early Leafs.
https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/04/screen-shot-2018…

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I am basically in a holding pattern until we get some confirmation the Leaf can be retrofitted with modern, current cells. It seems high performance LiFePO4 batteries can be run indefinitely without cooling, provided the battery packs are heated before they are charged. That would be a game changer for something like the Leaf, which lacks any sort of cooling, but I think Blue Cars in Auckland is working on a Leaf with today's Lithium Ion cells which should be more resilient anyway. Once there is an upgrade path available at a semi-decent price, I'd be happy to import one of the revised 1st Gen ones - that would be a great commuter car for us.

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I hope you meant 99g/km or 9.9kg/100k.

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Personally, having driven too/from Rotorua and Northland over the last couple of weeks, I can’t wait for driverless electric cars. The standard of driving is appalling here and I lost count of the number of vans and trucks kicking out major fumes from their exhaust systems.

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I followed a logging truck, as one does, and it was putting out more smoke than a steam locomotive.
I suspect the state of our trucks is the reason the government is avoiding emissions controls.

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I hope you enjoy waiting, cause you're gonna be doing it for decades.

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All stick, no carrot. Textbook bureaucracy

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Better late than never. Should have had this 10 years ago. The guy who thinks car companies are waiting to see NZ's legislation before designing their engines is hilariously out of touch of his own industry or full of sh@t. I pick the latter.

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This reminds me of the clowns that made you change your seatbelts on early Japanese imports in the 1990's. We don't make seatbelts let alone cars and think we can start calling the shots. The problem is more about maintenance and keeping the engine in good condition so it remains with low enough emissions. I guess this is where EV's will have an advantage but the batteries will be fun to recycle in a country that cannot even recycle its own plastic waste.

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I guess this is where EV's will have an advantage but the batteries will be fun to recycle in a country that cannot even recycle its own plastic waste.

You think there won't be an international market for recycling very high cost items deliberately designed to be recycled or reused such as EV car batteries?

The reason plastic can't be recycled is it's not economic to do so - that is it's practically impossible to make a profit from it.

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You mean shipped all the way to third world countries like our E-Waste ? Out of sight and out of mind while the pollution they make goes unchecked ? I foresee a battery disposal fee coming into effect in the future. Its going to be interesting because I recon an electric car is going to work out more expensive in the long run over someone that can do their own maintenance on a petrol car and make it last 20 years no problem.

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So this government wants everyone to buy cars that can do 4.57L/100km??
Or basically 1.0 - 1.5L shopping carts?
Most cars 2.0L or above will use at least 7-9L per 100km, and trucks will chew a lot more...

Do they realise how impractical this is?

Using the rightcar website guide the average https://rightcar.govt.nz/carbon-emissions
Premium petrol - L/100 km x 23.414 = CO2 grams/km
Regular petrol - L/100 km x 22.847 = CO2 grams/km
Petrol (average) - L/100 km x 22.961 = CO2 grams/km
Diesel - L/100km x 26.050 = CO2 grams/km

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Once this comes in, the dealers will start selling in NZ engines speced the same as they do overseas. Small turbo petrol engines have pleanty of grunt while deliverying low emmissions when crusing.

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See, I was wondering about that because I own a Mini - an older BMW one, but a 1600 turbo, so fairly impressive for a small packaged four banger. It emits 164g/km. So I had a look at what the tailpipe emissions of the current 3 door Cooper S. It's a 2l, but it puts out 15 more horsies. It's 125g/km. None of these would fit under the new average. The only one that would is the entry-level 3 cylinder Cooper, which is 100g/km, and the EV. So Mini is going to have to sell a lot of EVs and bog-standard Coopers to get the average emissions down to 105g/km, to make up for the Clubmans, JCWs and Countrymans. Incidentally the base Swift wouldn't either - that's 106g/km. So that's where the average bar is set: just below a new entry level Swift, but above an entry level Mini.

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The 1.6 diesel would also fit (99g/CO2 per km, 3.8l per 100km.) Although I would suggest the government should rething what they are about to do because diesel particulate emissions give people lung cancer and are now being banned from cities in the EU.

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We should have been transitioning to smaller cars with smaller turbo charged engines years ago but guess what ? We are moving to even bigger cars with bigger engines like SUV's with terrible drag coefficients. People in smaller cars feel threatened and go out and buy a bigger car. The market has gone in exactly the wrong direction for progress on lowering emissions. Still who really cares ? if our government were serious about this they would have had emissions testing at your WOF as compulsory like they already do in many countries.

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Which is why it is spread across the range of vehicles a importer imports. some will be less , some will be more.

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If it's CO2 and economy being targeted most manufacturers will push diesel ("Dirty D!") The EU is banning them because they give city folks lung cancer due to particulate emissions so there is plenty of production capacity available.

Coal rolling is coming to New Zealand!

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My 2.5l V6 2007 Toyota does 9.8 l/100km on premium petrol, which is 229 g/km. If I save up for the next 11 years I might be able to afford the 2019 version, which emits 187g/km. No goer there. I don't see an affordable alternative to what I have on the market now, so looks like I'll be keeping it for another 15 years or so. Maybe if I save up I'll be able to afford a 12 year old EV.

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Actually...the energy and emissions created in building a new car may be made up for by you holding that old car anyway.

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Sustainability includes not throwing away items that have already incurred huge energy/resource costs in their construction, like cars.
I find it hard to believe that it's not *more* sustainable to drive a 10-year-old Japanese car that would otherwise be junked, than it is to buy (and create the demand for) a newer, cleaner car. I might be wrong, but how many hundred thousand k's would you have to drive to equal the emissions of a new car's production?

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I thought that might actually answer my question, which would be nice... but it looks to me that it makes a glaring logical error in including the original production emissions (sunk cost) of the older vehicle when comparing the two, which renders the comparison pointless.

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Sorry I can’t help.
But have you considered the health benefits of reducing the pollution in the middle of Auckland as a reason for reducing emissions with a new car.
I think that what is driving the move to electric in Europe and Asia..and California.

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Now Biden has signed up to convert the 645000 Federal fleet to electric this us going to drive glibal demand for cars batteries etc higher. Process will stay well up.

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In elastic markets where supply can be ramped up, which is batteries for cars, increased demand = lower prices, as per economics 101.

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Except that lithium is far less abundant as something like lead.

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Agreed.

ECON 101 reckons without physics, biology, or chemistry. Calls them 'externalities'.

Until they ain't......

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Why did no one care about lithium when we were throwing away gameboys and iphones every single year? No one cared then.

"Recycling must also play a central role in avoiding a lithium supply crunch, according to the LUT-Augsburg research, with the 45% of lithium-ion batteries recycled today set to rise to 99% by 2050, based on recent technological data which suggested the element's recycling efficiency is around 95%."

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/how-long-will-the-lithium-supply…

It will be fine. Maybe worry about the rare-earth elements in Hydrogen catalysts.

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Note the fallacies?

Recycling efficiency? Actually, they mean volume thereof. Not efficiency. Note the article doesn't mention the energy required to do the recycling - the very reason we don't recycle now, the reason we don't sequester carbon, too.

And hypothetical assertions 30 years out, are not fine. Especially based on such cranial omission.

Almost as bad as an economist....

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PDK, I broadly agree with your digs here, but the reality is there's a huge number of people who are suddenly concern-trolling about Lithium who have had portable electronics powered by Li-Ion batteries that have been discarded year on year for decades, and we've only suddenly started hearing about things like Li-shortages when it became clear EVs were a better solution for the environment than ICE. It's an industry talking point, and nothing more. Over time, we will use less and less of it anyway per EV. Silicon-doped anodes are imminent in modern batteries even before we start talking about solid start or other hypotheticals, and they'll have longer useful lives. It's not perfect, but if you want to be able to pay for the rest of the energy rationalising you keep talking about, we have to keep the economy moving and EVs will let us do that. Lose a battle, win a war.

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PDK, I broadly agree with your digs here, but the reality is there's a huge number of people who are suddenly concern-trolling about Lithium who have had portable electronics powered by Li-Ion batteries that have been discarded year on year for decades, and we've only suddenly started hearing about things like Li-shortages when it became clear EVs were a better solution for the environment than ICE. It's an industry talking point, and nothing more. Over time, we will use less and less of it anyway per EV. Silicon-doped anodes are imminent in modern batteries even before we start talking about solid start or other hypotheticals, and they'll have longer useful lives. It's not perfect, but if you want to be able to pay for the rest of the energy rationalising you keep talking about, we have to keep the economy moving and EVs will let us do that. Lose a battle, win a war.

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Pay? Economy?

Sorry, you lost me there. I was talking about physical availability.

The debt is already beyond the ability of the remaining energy and remaining resources and remaining sink capacity, to be repaid. So I ask, with perfect sincerity; Pay with what?

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40% of the world's lithium comes outta two modest holes in WA: Greenbushes (Talison) and Mt Cattlin/Ravensthorpe (Galaxy). And there's plenty more where Those came from: WA is highly prospective - see Stanifer's tenements.

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You know what's dirty? Cobalt mining in the Congo. In a conflict zone. Shipped to South Africa. Shipped to China, refined and manufactured into a battery, shipped to Japan, then back to China, then back to Japan, then to NZ - for a Prius. You know how many carbon kilometres are on your clean little battery you deranged climate psychos?

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I quite agree - bicycles are the obvious choice for 80% of journeys, electric if you need to travel more than 10-20km or hilly country or if you're elderly etc.

Electric vehicles are a distant second, with filthy ICE cars trailing far behind. Plenty of oil is produced in conflict zones too - the oil is often implicated in causing the conflict, in fact.

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Nobody is parading oil as the answer to all climate problems. But if you drive a Tesla you're pretty much tagged as a canonized saint. You're not. You're as much of a resource whore as the rest of us. That's all I'm pointing out.

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I guess importing goal from Asia to burn in our power stations to generate energy to charge your EV doesnt contribute to CO2 emissions.

Also as we see with Labour the charging infrastructure is absent.

I guess you can always take your fossil fuel powered generator in your boot if you get stuck.

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If you charge overnight you're unlikely to be drawing on coal, hydro and geothermal can generally handle the lower loads. Higher electricity usage is now starting to prompt the powercos to build new generation - couple of big wind farms going up and Contact considering a new geothermal plant.

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Re wind farms, the huge fiber glass and carbon fibre blades at present are not recyclable and go straight to land fill. It's not be so successful in South Australia. Certainly there needs to be a variety of methods of generation.

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Yes, and I mostly agree. As I said, the bicycle is far more efficient for most journeys - I don't need to bring several hundred kg of metal along with me when I commute to work when 15kg will do and give me a little exercise at the same time. Likewise popping to the shops, but even at my local supermarket 98% of people seem to drive for some reason. Hop on your bike or walk and be part of the solution.

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Tesla is actively working on a 0-cobalt battery right now. No date for when it will be available for sale, but I'd imagine it'll be within 5 years and probably within 3.

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Whats powering your phone / laptop / device ??? .

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I'm not trying to be climatically virtuous. I understand the environmental and human cost for my lifestyle. I'm cool with it. Policy wonks are trying to play Climate Jesus with this stuff.

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I honesty don't think that is the case. I think its more a case of them looking at an almost impossible task ( reducing global warming ) , and trying to get the necessary changes acceptable. I don't think anyone is suggesting going back to the horse and cart , its all about using the best available and developing technology to provide the lifestyle we have all become accustomed to .

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Serious question (please answer)

All the comments here are debating various degrees of efficiency.

But even if we are super efficient recyclers of the current level of human technology, we are still going to consume Finite resources.

So ultimately, is pulling the human race back to horse and cart the only real solution?

The other course always ending up in us bleeding the planet dry (I'm talking hundreds of years).

Don't get me wrong, it's a hard concept for me too. I commute to work on an Ktm rc8r..

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CO2 emissions of 108 g/km :)

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Vaclav Smil's thoughts on Degrowth are worth reading: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/vaclav-smil-interview-gro…
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/vaclav-smil-on-the-need-to-aban…

We are living in unprecedented conspicuous consumption, living beyond our means by passing the cost down. We don't need much of the stuff we consume and wouldn't be significantly poorer without it.

We need to take up this enormous slack in the system and bring down our consumption of everything by 10, 20, 30, 40 percent quite realistically. But people aren’t willing to do it, because people want to have it all. Giant houses with circular staircases which are not properly insulated. They want to have their SUVs, and they want to have their raspberries in January. That’s the problem.

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Every study that I have read on full lifecycle emissions of electric vehicle vs ICE which doesn't have obvious holes or bias, shows electric car emissions are significantly lower in countries that are generating 30-50% of their electricity from non renewables. For NZ where we generate only 5-15% from non renewables, electric vehicles are so far in front it's not even funny.

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But surely you can get a lot on each ship?

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I must say i am amazed that our average is 171 CO₂/km.
When a 7 year old Skoda Octavia family wagon that does 0-100 km/h in 8.5 seconds emmits 105 CO₂/km already.

But then the top selling in NZ Ford Ranger with the 3.2l engine does 234 CO₂/km ...

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Whoops slight mistake in my specs there, 0-100 in 8.0 and 117g of CO₂

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But just shows the government are a bunch of non starters.

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is that 117g based on the stated (bubble world) fuel economy? or real world?

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I guess this torches the small RV market some of which are built here and those towing bigger boats and caravans.

What it could do is push those people into trucks and vehicles over the 3500 kg like RAMS etc.

Not looking good for the likes of Audi where most of the fleet on offer exceeds those targets and ev versions are higher priced.

The Lamborghini importer is going to need to find and sell a cheap of small eva to drop their average.

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Great initiative to increase the cost of vehicles. Those who can't afford it should walk to work. Now we have to decide which neighbourhood deserves to get cancer from lithium dumps and have lithium enhanching the flavour of their tap water.

Good job Labour, let's do this!

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Now we have to decide which neighbourhood deserves to get cancer from lithium dumps and have lithium enhanching the flavour of their tap water.

Or we could, you know, just not do that.

At the moment, all suburban neighbourhoods suffer from ICE pollution.

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Fine by me. Newer cars, preferred by wealthier buyers, will easily meet this standard.

The major financial burden will fall on lower income people and families who will now have to pay more for their imported used cars.

Again the government shows excellent restraint protecting the wealthy from new taxes.

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That's a very good point. And it will incentivise poor people to keep their old dungers.
Having said that, I still agree with the policy.
Perhaps another reason to introduce a tax free income tax threshold.

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"The major financial burden will fall on lower income people and families who will now have to pay more for their imported used cars."

Probably not, because NZ emission standard will be lagging so much behind the rest, we will always get the cars that cannot be sold elsewhere. Thus cheapest, unless importers are fleecing us.

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If it puts paid to the idiots in their rice rockets burning rubber on residential streets, screaming through the gears in 50kph areas, then you would have to be all for it

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As is usual with so many liberal initiatives it's those at the lower end of the income scale who cant afford a higher priced ev car and bear the brunt of the chardonnay socialist agenda.

No problem though Labour thought of that. Raise the minimum wage. Should make evs more affordable and pay for increased rents and cost of living. Their lives just get harder.

Nice one.

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How is making sure cars brought into the country use less fuel hurting the lower income people? They will be spending less on fuel .Unless they hold onto a older bigger car. Perhaps a scheme to spay them to scrap the big old gas guzzlers would be beneficial , to both goals ?

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Generally the initial outlay is much higher than on ICE vehicles. Low income families tend to borrow to buy vehicles. The more you borrow the higher the weekly repayments

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Has anyone actually seen the scientific calculation that confirms man made Co2 causes global warming. Im sure with all the scientific consensus and government due diligence that it should be easy to find.

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How do you fend off a Tyrannosaurus? Figured you'd have contemporary knowledge,,,,

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Does it matter?

Its happening.

We are are consuming Finite resources to sustain our current lifestyles.

What next?

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Jacinda and family on a 2 week summer holiday in a 2011 Nissan Leaf, budgeted with the average families left over spare holiday $....be a brilliant TV show that

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Let's hope the Jevons paradox doesn't kick in...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

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It's already happened?

We are burning more coal now in the 2000s compared to the 1800s when this was written...

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Jevon's paradox - thanks so much for this. When the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority had their Warm Up New Zealand intervention, it was supposed that insulating homes would lead to poorer people having to spend less on heating their homes. Instead, they found that people took the "heat dividend" - i.e. they spend the same on power and took the extra heat, thank you very much.
The paradox implies the same thing could happen with more efficient vehicles - that for there to be a decrease in the CO2 emissions from improved energy efficiency, fuel prices will have to increase significantly to offset the increased travel which is expected to occur due to it becoming cheaper to travel. Raising the fuel price would therefore wipe out the savings to poorer people which the government is touting. If not, cars will be more expensive, people will just travel further, and CO2 emissions will stay the same.

Great work government!

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If the tooth fairy waved her magic wand and converted all NZ's light vehicle fleet to ev overnight, would we have enough electricity? charging points? Me thinks we will need an abundance of fairy dust to make even some of what is being proposed feasible by 2025.

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A back-of-the-envelope calc circa 2015, suggested that if we reused the Tiwai power (diverted Manapouri) it would run the domestic car fleet.

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Saw this coming, bought a new DC diesel ute. Good for 400K.....

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No more Ford Rangers or SUV's sorry... Even if they are the most popular and practical cars today
Yeah, good luck with that Michael....!!
OK, so we've agreed that putting this law into practice in 5 years means that all families now have to think about buying Alto's, Entry level Minis, (some) Suzuki Swifts, Small European hatchbacks or Electric Vehicles

Let's give it till the next election cycle for the public to simply say NO, and then this 'proposal' will be sent to the dust pile or significantly revised

And this is from someone who owns and drives a Leaf to work every day and loves it... This proposal is simply impractical and idealistic (no surprise there from Labour)

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