The government has changed which vehicles are eligible for its Clean Car Discount scheme and will only offer rebates to imports that emit less than 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
A similar policy change was originally planned to take effect in 2025, but has been brought forward as the scheme—which was supposed to be cost neutral—was running out of funding.
The Clean Car Discount scheme offers a rebate to buyers of low-emissions cars, funded by imposing a fee on buyers of high-emission vehicles.
However, there have been more electric vehicles being bought than expected, so the fees and rebates are not balancing out.
Last month, Toyota NZ chief executive Neeraj Lala told media there had been a massive increase in the sales of battery electric vehicles, which were eligible for the highest rebates.
Meanwhile, less vehicles were being subjected to the fees supposedly funding the scheme.
“It doesn’t have enough money, it’s as simple as that. It’s not sustainable. We’re going to see some changes and they will be gift-wrapped in a package that will be a surprise,” he said.
As predicted, Transport Minister Michael Wood on Monday announced the eligibility criteria for the rebate would be lowered to include cars that emit less than 100 grams of CO2 per kilometre, down from 146 grams.
“The scheme is facilitating an increase in the number of EVs entering the fleet we did not expect until 2027. As planned we are further targeting the scheme to maintain its success, and ensure it will be self-funding until its next review,” he said in a statement.
This will likely mean that only battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will be eligible, ruling out most plugless hybrids and pure petrol cars.
Rebates for zero emission used import vehicles will increase from $3,450 to $3,507 and the Crown will increase the scheme’s repayable grant by $100 million in Budget 2023.
Wood said the threshold for fees would also be lowered, from 192 grams of CO2 per kilometre to 150 grams, and the charges would increase. This is likely to hit more vehicles like utes.
The scheme was now forecast to reduce emissions by 3.4 million tonnes by 2035.
“That’s an additional 50% out to 2035 over and above what was forecast when it started. It will deliver twice the emissions reduction forecast between the start of the scheme and 2025,” he said.
92 Comments
Keep at it. As always ad nauseam, so long as there’s something to be parroted as being worse, then anything else sub par is justified.How to set a benchmark, not. Obviously, based on your unflinching partisanship , there should never have been anything else but Labour governments in New Zealand, ever since Mr Savage.
Short term thinking is all our politicians are capable of, which is why nothing ever gets solved.
We invite tens of thousands of people to come live here without thinking about infrastructure. We spend billions on our zero-COVID strategy without thinking about the negative effects on our economy. And we encourage everyone to drive around in EVs without thinking about how we're all going to be charging them.
One cooler than usual evening in winter, and we're already getting rolling brownouts. Don't even think about lighting that fireplace, either.
Lest we forget they are technically subsidising fossil fuel via the fuel tax removal temporarily. Grab your solar folks, you certainly can't rely on the system for too much longer. Woe betide the EV commuters who run out of juice halfway to work due to overnight blackouts preventing charging
Why would you think there'd be overnight blackouts, the time when electricity consumption is lowest?
Also very few people with EVs must charge their car every single night in order to meet their daily commute requirements.
Really the problem to worry about is fuel shortages, since all of that is imported to NZ. Electricity is actually made here.
That's why we're a market economy that relies on price signals to drive the public's behaviour, rather than a command and control economy.
People will charge their cars when the price is lowest. If that ceases to be the night, then people will shift charging their cars to during the day, in many cases likely from solar panels on their roofs.
No they wont. I have debated this many times before.
Human psychology and history says most people will plug their cars in when they get home. Most will either not look/care about pricing (after all it is still significantly cheaper than fuel), refuse to pay for timers, or simply not understand/care how to delay charging.
Annecdotal evidence is already supporting this, and I am sure when/if official studies/info comes out they will show the same trend - with a small outlier of early adopters who are naturally more consious of such things.
The one mitigating factor is that many simply wont be able to plug in as they can't access a suitable power point. A drive round any suburb in NZ will show why this is an issue in itself and likely to stifle the adaption of fully EV cars for a long time yet.
I only plug in when needed (about once per week) and the car's timer is set to charge between 11pm and 7am when electricity is cheapest.
Also coming soon is demand-shifted charging. Octopus just launched their version Intelligent Octopus | Octopus Energy NZ and other power companies are working on it too. This allows you to plug in when you get home and set the % charge you need in the morning and the software will manage the charging at the cheapest time. They even pay you to do this.
All well and good if you can fork out the up front costs of the system, however for a single person in an energy efficient modern house the payback isn't there. This summer has also been a disaster for solar in Auckland and most other places so if this is set to continue or even get worse then it going to be a problem.
yes , but those grid upgrades can make it smarter , and are probably needed anyway.
Its not like there's not problems already , with phase imbalance , voltage drop , power factor, etc.
At a local transformer level, a neighbourhood could be rewarded for load sharing , solar and battery backup . Those that agree can have power savings in exchange for smart control of thier demand.
Grid upgrades will of course be required. A continuous process, as has been the case since invention of electricity. But that’s not a reason not to do it. There’s far more to be saved by encouraging high uptake of domestic solar and doing necessary grid upgrades than building new power stations to support increasing power demand
Yep. People cannot seem to understand that it requires generation from other stations to fill it up. Over and above what would have been generated. Because it doesn't rain much at Onslow. So additional generation would be required as well as Onslow. Very very expensive....
Constant generation to replace the evaporation in the driest part of NZ.
"A recent Infrastructure Commission technical paper concluded that the proposed Lake Onslow pumped hydro scheme can’t provide New Zealand with a cost advantage until 2037.
It also found that any advantage it does provide won’t be long-lasting “unless the cost to build it is substantially below $10 billion”.
That was before Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods announced via a Cabinet paper that the P50 cost estimate – a mid-range probability – for Onslow would be $15.9 billion."
"Long-term battery storage without over-build of wind & solar $28,000 million Source: Culy (2019b)"
I have a Passive House (the most energy efficient housing standard) and the return from my solar system has been spectacular. At current buyback rates if 17c/kWh it should be a no-brainer if you have some money to invest - you'll get multiple times the return of term deposits and tax free.
Absolutely - more windmills, more solar farms, more hydro, more geothermal, and start battery storage as well. Every dollar we spend less exporting to pay for foreign petrol that instead goes into purchasing locally produced electricity is fantastic for New Zealand (leaves us much less exposed to foreign sourced energy price shocks, and security of supply is all local and of course is much better for our national trade deficit).
purchasing locally produced electricity
We will undoubtedly rely quite heavily on foreign capital, skills and equipment to build and operate those solar, battery and wind farms, charging stations, and our electrical infrastructure (grid, distribution, etc.). We can expect the majority of dollars spent on electrifying NZ to end up elsewhere, propping up our current account deficit even further, at least in the short to medium term.
Would've been nice to spend some money over the last decade on clean tech R&D and workforce development instead of buying houses from one another for ever-increasing prices and importing lower skilled workers.
Good idea, and you should add solar panels. Unfortunately they cannot get out of their own way and achieve any thing, so they will just end up burning more coal and emit more CO2 as a result. Given their lack of achievement at decarbonising the power sector they would achieve something positive by removing the subsidy for EVs and increasing it for hybrids which make a real and immediate contribution.
If I were running a subsidy for EVs scheme it would be tied to cash that can only be spent on fitting solar power to homes. That way the user has some chance of using renewable power for their transport and not coal at Huntly. Why is every public building in the country not fitted with solar panels? How about making solar power installs on company buildings tax deductible? How many thousands of acres of north facing roofs do we have, where solar could be fitted instead of covering good farmland with them? (Isn't interesting that it is economic for private companies that trade within the power sector to do this) Could it all be something to do with appeasing the vested interested lobbyists from the power companies?
This is a great initiative by the government, pushing us away from fossil fuels and also toward energy independence and which will also have a huge effect on our balance of trade deficits as well as lower our GHG emissions. Lets give credit where it is due. Yes, we will need to build more generation and it's coming online as well with a number of windfarms under development as well as geothermal. Of particular note is Genesis asking for an extension to the Castle Hill wind farm, albeit for less turbines adding the potential for scale up later, and the discussion around off shore turbines too. Add in Onslow to the mix and we might be setting ourselves up well for the future.
Last time I looked (a couple years ago during their last brinkmanship rort of Meridien & the NZ taxpayer), their total annual subsidies cost more than all those $100k pa jobs - & probably also the bulk of any NZ company tax paid by RioTinto who capture the bulk of the export earnings.
A comparison is the previous Australian car assembly industry which prior to closure was reported to cost the Australian taxpayer $50k per vehicle..
Because they have heavily subsidised power and contribute very little to the country. The power could be far better used (via transmission upgrades) elsewhere in the country, eg powering EVs instead of relying on imported petrol, and saving GHG emissions and cost of offsets. Or producing green hydrogen.
Fixed that for you -
“Its a great initiative if you believe that taking money from wannabe Ute drivers who can afford $80k Ranger Raptors and giving it to people who want an efficient vehicle is a good idea”
Let’s exempt farmers and fine everyone else, who are mostly company vehicles and urban warriors.
And yet you insist on making the perfect the enemy of the good. EVs are simply better, get over it.
The scheme is intended to accelerate EV adoption and create a vibrant used EV car market for said ‘poor people’, who were never going to buy a new $50k vehicle to begin with.
Speaking of the perfect being the enemy of the good: several studies have shown that on a life cycle basis EVS do not surpass ICEs in lower climate emissions until at least 100000kms/8yrs. At which point the vehicle has depreciated below the cost of the replacement battery which regenerates more than half the climate emissions.
I'm aware that these studies are global (as are climate emissions, NZs contribution being <0.2%) & therefore electricity generation technologies are a component factor.
That number was 60,000km years ago based on not-particular green manufacturing and shitty cell densities. Both have improved since. And don't mistake the warranty period for the time a battery is usable, it's commonly an 80% capacity metric - as in your 500km range EV will only go 400km off a full charge. You don't have to throw it away at that point, it's just not as good as it was when it was new. And even then there are some electrolytes which will repair batteries if they are charged in a certain way or cycled at a certain heat. In which case, you'd have close to no wear at all. Meanwhile, my high performance hatch has been through three fuel pumps, badly needs a walnut blast and probably needs the catalytic converter replacing, at just over 100,000km. I think the EV is probably winning this one, eh.
Aww, poor chebbo, looks like I hit a nerve. EVs are great solution to suburban air quality, and a good move towards energy independence. A shit ton of advantages over dirty fossil fuel cars, both environmentally and convenience for the drivers. It’s not hype, it’s reality. You should try it sometime..
since there is no way this country will ever build a comprehensive functional public transport network in my lifetime, I don’t see any better options on the horizon.
Are we going to get the tradies and farmers to pay for landfilling the batteries too? Or do we get the Congo kids on to it?
"Unfortunately there are currently no facilities in New Zealand for recycling electric vehicle batteries. This means they must be exported to a special facility in Australia, which involves different types of transport, lots of paperwork and a substantial cost for each battery."
https://www.cartakeback.co.nz/blog/in-the-know/recycling-electric-and-h…
"Currently, lithium-ion batteries in Australia need to be shipped offshore in order to be melted down and recycled. There are logistical constraints with this process along with financial and economic concerns to consider, as well as regulatory barriers between nations."
https://www.cartakeback.co.nz/blog/in-the-know/recycling-electric-and-h…
"Hence the elite state-mandated battery recycling companies only get a small slice of the battery recycling pie, and the vast majority of batteries disappear into an uncontrollable and untraceable growing miasma of thousands of companies. On June 23, a domestic newspaper searched for “power battery recycling” companies on the business database Qichacha 企查查 and found 57,244 results for related companies. A month later, on July 27, the same search returned a total of 62,157 entries.
Most of these companies are small workshops with little if any investment in safety and environmental protection. In addition, a complete set of industry standards for battery recycling is still lacking in China."
https://thechinaproject.com/2022/07/28/chinas-first-generation-electric…
"Storing the Battery
Once a battery has been removed from the car, to minimise the risk of it getting damaged and potentially catching fire, injuring someone through electric shock or causing breathing difficulties through leaking chemicals, it must be very carefully handled and stored. This means any facility storing these batteries must have plenty of well-ventilated space, away from other materials such as scrap cars, fuels, tyres etc. and the batteries must not be piled on top of each other.
Transporting the Battery
Because of the chemicals used inside an electric or hybrid vehicle battery, once removed from the car these must be very carefully packaged and transported to make sure there is no risk of electric shock, fire or explosion to those involved in transporting them. This sometimes involves using very expensive boxes and packaging and means that the right trucks must be used with extra safety precautions in place and properly trained drivers."
https://www.cartakeback.co.nz/blog/in-the-know/recycling-electric-and-h…
Who pays? Recycling a cobalt free battery is never going to cover the costs. It's easy being virtue signal green.
"Both processes produce extensive waste and emit greenhouse gases, studies have found. And the business model can be shaky: Most operations depend on selling recovered cobalt to stay in business, but battery makers are trying to shift away from that relatively expensive metal. If that happens, recyclers could be left trying to sell piles of “dirt,” says materials scientist Rebecca Ciez of Purdue University.
...Recycling researchers, meanwhile, say effective battery recycling will require more than just technological advances. The high cost of transporting combustible items long distances or across borders can discourage recycling. As a result, placing recycling centers in the right places could have a “massive impact,” Harper says. “But there’s going to be a real challenge in systems integration and bringing all these different bits of research together.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/millions-electric-cars-are-comi…
…and they didn’t even pour money in. It’s capital has run out because it was more successful at changing buyer behaviour than expected, which will be addressed by the new settings that will drive further behaviour change and make the scheme closer to revenue neutral. Actually very good policy.
And still....the 3.4 million ton CO2 reduction is dwarfed by the 9 million ton of CO2 reduction if they had stick to the biofuel mandate. Yes petrol would be a bit more expansive but we would not punish Utes and vans beforehand. In other words if we would choose to drive a ICE vehicle we would pay for it as our own choice.
A Tesla 3 has a 50kwh battery. Our electricity network is burning coal to generate electricity for any additional load. As the electric cars are new to the grid the electricity the use will be burning coal.
Based on GPT calculations, 45kg of coal will be burnt producing 128kg of CO2 for every full recharge.
≈============
To generate 50 kW of electricity for one hour.
Next, using the estimate that a coal-fired power plant requires about 0.9 kg of coal to generate 1 kWh of electricity, the amount of coal required to generate 50 kWh of electricity would be:
50 kWh x 0.9 kg/kWh = 45 kg
Therefore, approximately 45 kg of coal would be required to generate 50 kW of electricity for one hour.
Finally, using the estimate that the combustion of 1 kg of coal produces about 2.86 kg of CO2, the amount of CO2 produced by the combustion of 45 kg of coal would be:
45 kg x 2.86 kg CO2/kg coal = 128.7 kg CO2
Therefore, approximately 128.7 kg of CO2 would be produced by the combustion of 45 kg of coal to generate 50 kW of electricity for one hour.
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