Electric vehicle rebate and 'ute tax' killed off in December 2023

[heltok]

Electric vehicle rebate and 'ute tax' set to be killed off in December

The Clean Car Discount and so-called 'ute tax' is set to be axed at the end of this year by the new National Government.

www.stuff.co.nz

National issued a pledge in September that it planned to eliminate the Clean Car Discount by December 31 of this year if elected into office, noting that Labour had promised that the scheme would be fiscally neutral – a promise that had not come to fruition.

“National does not believe New Zealanders who can afford a brand-new electric car need a subsidy from taxpayers to buy it. The move to EVs will happen without subsidies as those who can afford new cars choose to reduce their personal carbon footprints and their dependence on fossil fuels,” said National leader Christopher Luxon in a statement issued last month.

Instead of subsidising EV purchases, National plans to support electric vehicle adoption by investing further in the creation of the public charger network, pledging to build 10,000 chargers around the country by 2030 at a cost of $257m.

 

[kartelnz]

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18364/attachments/original/1693957243/Supercharging_EV_Infrastructure.pdf?1693957243

 

[Matt_NZ]

https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18364/attachments/original/1693957243/Supercharging_EV_Infrastructure.pdf?1693957243

Which is what the government has already been doing for the last decade or so lol. Excluding Tesla Superchargers, most EV chargers in NZ exist because they received a subsidy from the government.

 

[Audietron]

Personally I really dislike when for political purposes... parties come and change everything they supported to pass thru parliament in first place as opposition... every 3 years same rinse-repeat and taxpayers are the ones footing bill for their party level agendas.

And climate pays even higher.

 

[m3lol]

It was always a populist move imo. I mean calling it a ute tax was quite a smart way to oppose it.

Also, by saying that the feebate system has costed money rather than being neutral before letting it actually start paying back the initial funding, the new govt has effectively accepted the loss of that funding that would not be paid back if they kept going.

Even more salt in the wounds reading this article on Kiwi EV opinion that public charging is low on the reason for slower adoption than purchase price so the proposal to increase public charging instead of Ev subsidy seems like a miss?

New study finds Kiwi interest in EVs is slowing

A new study has found that interest in electric vehicles is beginning to wane in New Zealand.

i.stuff.co.nz

 

[Lozza12]

I think it’s a disastrous policy decision to scrap it. Policies like this need to be in place for 5-10 years to be effective. The key benefit was to grow the used EV market so folks could pickup decent EVs for $20k-40k with 300km+ range.

With transport being our second largest source of emissions it was a no-brainer to accelerate EV adoption.

There are other policy options rather than a mindless populist action to kill the scheme. They could eliminate the ute feebate but keep the rebate, they could reduce both sums, or they could reduce the vehicle price cutoff to a less useful level of say $50,000.

But no….I suspect we are back to 3 more years of do-nothing government who sees landlords as the group most in need of welfare support, which is also why the country was fed up in 2017. We have a short memory.

 

[Audietron]

I think it’s a disastrous policy decision to scrap it. Policies like this need to be in place for 5-10 years to be effective. The key benefit was to grow the used EV market so folks could pickup decent EVs for $20k-40k with 300km+ range.

With transport being our second largest source of emissions it was a no-brainer to accelerate EV adoption.

There are other policy options rather than a mindless populist action to kill the scheme. They could eliminate the ute feebate but keep the rebate, they could reduce both sums, or they could reduce the vehicle price cutoff to a less useful level of say $50,000.

But no….I suspect we are back to 3 more years of do-nothing government who sees landlords as the group most in need of welfare support, which is also why the country was fed up in 2017. We have a short memory.

I wish there was a law to stop law changes....
something like, if all parties agree to pass a law or certain scheme, and agree on duration... regardless of which party govern - for that duration it can't be changed...
then we can still have democracy and choose government based on other key issues, policies, or popularity, or whatever the reason... without reverting good things or all parties agreed things passed as law/scheme in the past.

but, reality not that simple... humans are selfish animal only thinking of themselves - and political parties are the worst.

 

[heltok]

Government confirms CCD to end December 31 • Autotalk

Repealing the Clean Car Discount scheme by December 31 has been confirmed by the incoming Government as part of its 100-day plan.

autotalk.co.nz

BY AUTOTALK November 29, 2023 Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.
Repealing the Clean Car Discount scheme by December 31 has been confirmed by the new National-led Government as part of its promised 100-day plan.

 

[DanBoy]

It was badly implemented, why we don't look overseas for better ways to do it I just don't know. Subsidising EV's is fine but the 'ute tax' component ensures it was doomed. My mate just purchased his new EV in the UK, there incentive is he can purchase it through work either HP or LEASE and the payments come out of his PRETAX income so in effect the payments are 40% lower. No penalties for people who don't want to purchase one, people who can afford to pay cash get no discount as they can obviously afford it but someone who finances a new vehicle is rewarded for purchasing an EV.

 

[Matt_NZ]

It was badly implemented, why we don't look overseas for better ways to do it I just don't know. Subsidising EV's is fine but the 'ute tax' component ensures it was doomed. My mate just purchased his new EV in the UK, there incentive is he can purchase it through work either HP or LEASE and the payments come out of his PRETAX income so in effect the payments are 40% lower. No penalties for people who don't want to purchase one, people who can afford to pay cash get no discount as they can obviously afford it but someone who finances a new vehicle is rewarded for purchasing an EV.

I quite liked the way NZ did it, compared to what many other countries have done. Rather than making tax payers pay for the subsidy, which is unfair to those who don't drive, those who decide to buy high emission vehicles were the ones who funded the subsidy. So those who cause the damage, pay for the fix essentially.

However, certain political parties saw the potential for manipulation and sold the public on the "ute tax" lie when in reality, many utes received very little or even no fee while large European SUVs received the largest fees. They also made it sound like it was hurting farmers when again, in reality, most farmers aren't buying brand new utes - they buy second hand utes which aren't affected by the fees. Not to mention that utes have their own tax loopholes that make them cheaper.

 

[m3lol]

I really don’t understand the move to fund charging infrastructure instead. As per the article with the study i posted above, charging infrastructure was low on the list of issues to adoption.

Companies like Z and BP were already building up a good network on top of the work Tesla and Chargenet continue to do.

Perhaps someone can share the rationale behind it and how funding that was better than the current system?

 

[Audietron]

I really don’t understand the move to fund charging infrastructure instead. As per the article with the study i posted above, charging infrastructure was low on the list of issues to adoption.

Companies like Z and BP were already building up a good network on top of the work Tesla and Chargenet continue to do.

Perhaps someone can share the rationale behind it and how funding that was better than the current system?

political moves got nothing to do with rational...

new government is built with parties funded and supported by international lobbyist findings,, where politicians accepted aircrafts and funds with so called no-strings-attached support... so smoking, fossil fuel cars, and guns are going to be favoured in one or other way...

only 2.5 years for people to wake up and hopefully we change laws to create a law about parties coming in every few years and without any public consultation simply rolling back changes implemented over years, and literally wasting billions in efforts to get them in place in first place... cycle repeats every 3 years....

technically planet is doomed... probably time to leave on FSD mode with some AI as in charge - lol.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It was badly implemented, why we don't look overseas for better ways to do it I just don't know. Subsidising EV's is fine but the 'ute tax' component ensures it was doomed. My mate just purchased his new EV in the UK, there incentive is he can purchase it through work either HP or LEASE and the payments come out of his PRETAX income so in effect the payments are 40% lower. No penalties for people who don't want to purchase one, people who can afford to pay cash get no discount as they can obviously afford it but someone who finances a new vehicle is rewarded for purchasing an EV.

Salary sacrifice is just a way for leasing companies to rake it in because they can use the tax advantage to beat alternatives just by enough to get lessees. The better component for UK is lowering benefit-in-kind tax on company cars.

 

[Lozza12]

Salary sacrifice is just a way for leasing companies to rake it in because they can use the tax advantage to beat alternatives just by enough to get lessees. The better component for UK is lowering benefit-in-kind tax on company cars.

The current lot are not interested in solutions - they just want to smash anything the previous lot did. It’s not good government and it’s not good leadership.

The first policy to go should be the FBT exemption on utes. It’s fundamentally flawed and encourages businesses to lease more utes. I’ve seen this as a fleet manager.

Frankly I’m quite worried about where this is all headed, especially transport & climate action. Eliminating the CCS so soon is daft and is being driven by a vocal minority - Ute sales never suffered. Introducing RUCs on EVs and then maybe on all vehicles is also daft - it was an intended as a tax on heavy diesel trucks, not cars! Secondly, it ignores the volume of fuel purchased (and emissions) and only focussed on distance travelled. Thirdly, it punishes low income drivers who currently pay as they go with fuel levies, but under RUC they have to front up with $760 just to get in their car.

 

[Audietron]

The current lot are not interested in solutions - they just want to smash anything the previous lot did. It’s not good government and it’s not good leadership.

The first policy to go should be the FBT exemption on utes. It’s fundamentally flawed and encourages businesses to lease more utes. I’ve seen this as a fleet manager.

Frankly I’m quite worried about where this is all headed, especially transport & climate action. Eliminating the CCS so soon is daft and is being driven by a vocal minority - Ute sales never suffered. Introducing RUCs on EVs and then maybe on all vehicles is also daft - it was an intended as a tax on heavy diesel trucks, not cars! Secondly, it ignores the volume of fuel purchased (and emissions) and only focussed on distance travelled. Thirdly, it punishes low income drivers who currently pay as they go with fuel levies, but under RUC they have to front up with $760 just to get in their car.

if only anyone actually cared.... seems very rare now a days...
no wonder our good politicians choose to walk away from politics and continue focussing on doing greater good for masses around the world.
In the meantime, we pick up the bill for stupid reversals and planning...

 

[Miggy]

RUC for EV's are too high.

EV RUC petition to parliament

Philip Naniov of Christchurch is encouraging EV owners and others to sign and circulate his petition to parliament to reduce

evsandbeyond.co.nz

Petitions - New Zealand Parliament

Petitions are addressed to the House of Representatives and ask that the House do something about a policy or law, or put right a local or private concern.

petitions.parliament.nz

 

[FlyingKiwi]

Nope. Petrol tax is too low, and petrol cars need to be moved across to RUCs. RUCs are fine at $76/1000, possibly too low even

 

[Matt_NZ]

RUCs at $76/1000km puts city cars like the Leaf in the same weight category as a Ford Ranger than has a GVM 1.5 tonne heavier. At the same time, a comparable Hybrid vehicle is going to be paying half the rate as that Leaf.

Based on the current governments plans for vehicle taxes over the next 3 years, petrol vehicles are not going to be moving to RUC within that time period. Unless their intention is to now incentivise emission generating vehicles (which given the government we're talking about, I wouldn't doubt it), they should create a new weight category for RUC that puts most EVs on a comparable rate to hybrids.

 

[FlyingKiwi]

No, the reason there is only one weight band for light vehicles is because at the low loadings caused by light vehicles there is nearly zero wear to the roads. It's pointless to create a new weight band for a $1 or $2 discount on RUCs.

When you increase the GVM to 6 ton the RUCs only increases $6, or $4 if the vehicle has twin rear tyres, that's how little weight factors into the RUC Cost at low weight.

Once again, for the slow kids at the back, emissions have nothing to do with RUCs.

 

[Matt_NZ]

Since we're talking about slow people, you seem to have missed that currently RUC is tied to emissions for petrol vehicles. They are rewarded with lower RUC costs if their vehicle has better fuel efficiency/lower emissions. However, they are still generating emissions

Please answer why you think it's ok for emission generating vehicles to be incentivised with lower RUC costs while zero emission vehicles have to pay the full rate?