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

[QtownTaxiGreg]

RUC ignores fuel efficiency

It's in the name Road User Charge. It's not a pollution charging mechanism, never has been never will be.

The reason diesel vehicles got saddled with it it is because it's so much simpler to not place excise tax on it and then you only need one supply of diesel nationally. Farm vehicles, fishing boats, mining etc etc don't want to be claiming back excise tax for not being road users.

So much simpler in every way except small time road users want to whinge about it. Folding EV into RUC is completely fair. No need to whinge about it.

 

[Charl]

NZ RUC was implemented in 1977, to more fairly recover road damage cost due to heavy vehicles.
Being largely diesel powered it got applied to fuel source.
Conveniently, smaller diesels could be taxed less by simply creating a lighter weight class to tax.
There is of course an implied emissions element in there, but it is not explicit.

https://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/RUC-CAM.pdf

RUC has morphed into a convenient tax that can be fiddled with by successive politicians.
There is no convenient way to tax electricity for EV's, so RUC is used.
It's not unreasonable to pay for availability of common transport elements like road signage etc which (See above) is about 60% of the tax.

But the heavy haulage industry is stuffing up the roads at a rate way out of proportion to what they pay.
And, If we are serious about carbon emissions, we need to get the freight onto rail and sea, and distribute using electric vehicles.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

1st rule of taxation. If it moves, tax it.
2nd rule of taxation. If it is sitting still, tax it.

Just because they haven't figured out how to tax some things doesn't mean they have given up on the idea of ever taxing them.

 

[Lozza12]

It's in the name Road User Charge. It's not a pollution charging mechanism, never has been never will be.

The reason diesel vehicles got saddled with it it is because it's so much simpler to not place excise tax on it and then you only need one supply of diesel nationally. Farm vehicles, fishing boats, mining etc etc don't want to be claiming back excise tax for not being road users.

So much simpler in every way except small time road users want to whinge about it. Folding EV into RUC is completely fair. No need to whinge about it.

Explain why my EV should pay x2 the amount of a petrol Camry Hybrid, when my EV is lighter. We’ve gone from using no RUC for EVs as an incentive, to paying twice the logical amount just because the Transport Minister can’t be bothered thinking about it.

NZ now stands out as one of the very few countries in the world where EVs are taxed more than ICE because of their drivetrain, all because of mindless tax policy from dim witted politicians.

Just add another RUC weight band of <2 tonnes at about $40 per 1000km!!

 

[Lozza12]

1st rule of taxation. If it moves, tax it.
2nd rule of taxation. If it is sitting still, tax it.

Just because they haven't figured out how to tax some things doesn't mean they have given up on the idea of ever taxing them.

Except if you’re a landlord, then you get special welfare treatment because - you know - they’re an endangered class of people or something.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Explain why my EV should pay x2 the amount of a petrol Camry Hybrid, when my EV is lighter

Explain taxation? How long have you got?

Life isn't always exactly fair. It isn't exactly fair that an EV operator gets so much benefit out of a struggling electricity infrastructure for nix either.

Also the corollary of an EV running around foc when a diesel has to pay is not fair.

Somewhere in the middle where everyone is complaining they are paying too much tax and nobody is starving is where the taxman strikes.

I am more than happy with my deal.

Gas guzzlers paying more than hybrids gets more hybrids out and about for the next ten years while the grid and generation play catchup. Nobody wants the price of power to skyrocket.

I think it's a sensible and fair compromise that hybrids get less excise on them while EVs get cheap power.

To help you on your way to acceptance remember they pay a mess of GST, on the petrol AND on the excise. The taxman is getting them by the back passage.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Just add another RUC weight band of <2 tonnes at about $40 per 1000km!!

At the itty bitty passenger car road user end of it the weight is immaterial It is a charge simply for using the road, not wearing it out.

It is not an emission tax. Only by conflating the two can you go to 'fairness' being an issue.

 

[Charl]

EV's are all about CO2 reduction.
Encouraging their use reduces emissions.
Giving a purchase rebate and not taxing them is strong encouragement.
"Fairness" has little to do with removing these, it amounts to stupidity unless you think we should not reduce emissions.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

EV's are all about CO2 reduction.
Encouraging their use reduces emissions.
Giving a purchase rebate and not taxing them is strong encouragement.
"Fairness" has little to do with removing these, it amounts to stupidity unless you think we should not reduce emissions.

The incentives got the ball rolling. That's enough with the inventives according to the politicians. Even Labour had the removal of the free ride on RUC slated.

Nobody has ever said where all the power will come from to replace ICE. It's a lot. No govt wants to be the one presiding over power cuts while EV's are charging in some other part of the country

The only people complaining are EV owners who came in on the free ride. I think they have a bloody cheek considering what a great deal they are getting and with a subsidy to buy theirs!

I am buying my own EV to replace diesel. I have no problem whatsoever carrying on paying RUC. I will be saving hundreds and potentially even a thousand bucks in the odd frantic busy month by burning electrons instead of diesel. All courtesy of our nation's previous investments in power supplies. I feel I am being subsidized plenty!

By and large and by that I mean 99.999% of ICE vehicles traded on EVs will not be scrapped. What gets scrapped is the trade in on the trade in of the trade in two or three classes down. That happens regardless of whether the new car is EV or hybrid. Those are the worst of the polluters.

The holus bolus replacement of ICE is going to happen faster than anyone will be completely comfortable with, just the way they have reset it. Pay your RUC and be happy.

 

[Simon Honiss]

It isn't exactly fair that an EV operator gets so much benefit out of a struggling electricity infrastructure for nix either.

If you imagine that anyone gets electricity delivered for "nix" you'd better have a closer look at your bill, you pay for the costs of the infrastructure on every bill both national and local.

The belief that EV's will impact the electrical network is the worst kind of scaremongering. The grid is perfectly capable to deliver what's required, as an example, home charging for an EV will pull, on average for a level 2 charger, about 7kW which in my household is less that my induction hob or HVAC draw. I don't hear anyone complaining that switching to Heat pumps is going to drag the grid to it's knees and that's more prevalent than EV's. If you want to help the grid, making solar arrays mandatory on new home builds will help keep water in our storage lakes and Huntly turned off.

Anyway the unfairness of tax is not at the top end of the market, as apparently all Tesla drivers are "rich" and can afford the RUC but for your Leaf owners, which I suspect still well outnumber Tesla's, with the new tax a lot of those vehicles will become uneconomic to run. There benefits of EV's are far wider than providing drivers with quiet and cost effective motoring, their lack of emissions has a material impact on air quality which leads to reduced health costs and reducing the amount of expensive fuel imported helps with our balance of trade, I could go on. More EV's in NZ is a net benefit for the country and should be encouraged. This benefit should be recognised, and for a while it was (CCD), it maybe that RUC is not the most equitable way of recognising it but there should be some mechanism for doing so, tax incentives or otherwise. I am happy to pay my contribution to road charges but this is very poor policy and deserves to be called out as such.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

It only takes a few months of drought and power gets scarce. The I'm alright Jack attitude of EV folk is astounding. My power use is set to go up by a factor of 10 with the miles I do. If everyone was straight onto EV we would be browning out all over the show in winter.

Do the maths on how many billion kWh.km of petrol come into NZ in a year. It's a lot. Halve it because 'everyone' switched to hybrid and ditched their V8. It's still a lot of power to magic up to replace it.

 

[Simon Honiss]

It only takes a few months of drought and power gets scarce. The I'm alright Jack attitude of EV folk is astounding. My power use is set to go up by a factor of 10 with the miles I do. If everyone was straight onto EV we would be browning out all over the show in winter.

Do the maths on how many billion kWh.km of petrol come into NZ in a year. It's a lot. Halve it because 'everyone' switched to hybrid and ditched their V8. It's still a lot of power to magic up to replace it.

I don't think there's an "I'm alright jack attitude" I think you are projecting a bit there. For instance I put a solar array on my roof, I don't use more for my travel than I generate from that. I know of a few owners who have done similar. You won't get even close to halving fuel imports because it's mostly used by industrial processes not personal driving, energy from petrol is incredibly wasteful at 30% efficiency max not including carting it around all over the shop. Electricity is a much better solution. There are brown outs already it's not EV's, it's greedy power companies who are sitting on consented wind farms not building them until the price is right. Pull the plug on Tiwai and it's all sorted, we have choices and time. It's political will that's required and there's precious little of that on display currently.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

If you imagine that anyone gets electricity delivered for "nix" you'd better have a closer look at your bill, you pay for the costs of the infrastructure on every bill both national and loca

I was mainly referring to the free ride on the road.

But also a free ride on the grid. EV charging is a new use. The generation developed so far has all been at behest of traditional users. Industrial and home heating. So EV are indeed getting a free ride on the system by leaping on.

Heat pumps use less power than resistance heating for the same output. As such the power use should go down. They tend to get used indiscriminately and wind up with a large power bill to get a super cosy house. It's nice to be warm at home at the flick of a switch and power utilities have just about kept up.

If you pile on the EVs faster than the supply can grow you got a problem. I think the people who forecast demand on power probably had a word in the Energy Minister's ear about easing up on the EV uptake and this is where we are at.

The Nats only backpedalled on repeal of the introduction of RUC for EV. The buying subsidy was never going to last with all the other potential uses for gummint money.

I would be in favour of taxing spa pool operators first. About the only feasible way of doing that is allocation of cheap power to low users. Guess who else gets caught up in that?

Keep your head down and charging that EV cheap and stop fretting that you are paying a bit more excise than your neighbour.

 

[Steve_Chch]

But also a free ride on the grid. EV charging is a new use. The generation developed so far has all been at behest of traditional users. Industrial and home heating. So EV are indeed getting a free ride on the system by leaping on.

Nonsense. We pay for it. And I'm not sure what makes you think our grid is struggling. It isn't. Nor will the update at projected rates cause it significant problems either - I think most lay people for various reasons vastly underestimate the daily load of industry in comparison, and vastly overestimate the requirements of EV's.

 

[Simon Honiss]

I was mainly referring to the free ride on the road.

But also a free ride on the grid. EV charging is a new use. The generation developed so far has all been at behest of traditional users. Industrial and home heating. So EV are indeed getting a free ride on the system by leaping on.

Heat pumps use less power than resistance heating for the same output. As such the power use should go down. They tend to get used indiscriminately and wind up with a large power bill to get a super cosy house. It's nice to be warm at home at the flick of a switch and power utilities have just about kept up.

If you pile on the EVs faster than the supply can grow you got a problem. I think the people who forecast demand on power probably had a word in the Energy Minister's ear about easing up on the EV uptake and this is where we are at.

The Nats only backpedalled on repeal of the introduction of RUC for EV. The buying subsidy was never going to last with all the other potential uses for gummint money.

I would be in favour of taxing spa pool operators first. About the only feasible way of doing that is allocation of cheap power to low users. Guess who else gets caught up in that?

Keep your head down and charging that EV cheap and stop fretting that you are paying a bit more excise than your neighbour.

So your saying that all innovation has to stop because the poor old grid will suffer? Your straw men are all a nonsense, we had a low user rates until very recently when the power companies dropped them, as they worked too well.

Stop reducing this issue about having to reduce power consumption by users, this is what we built the grid for, it can cope, stop treating it like a finite resource because it's not. I've already stated that I'm happy to pay but there is a lot of non-Tesla drivers who may get driven back to fossil fuel cars, no-one wins from that, it's not the money it's the stupidity of the policy.

With regard to your own usage if your electricity charge going up by 10x just remember you're replacing petrol costs, I've saved about 14k on 40k worth of driving, 14k buys a lot of electricity.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

We don't have enough power as it is when the hydro is in drought.

It's really as simple as that, the reason they have put the brakes on subsidising more EV onto the roads.

We got through 77 petajoules of petrol in 2022 almost entirely used by petrol driven cars.

if the 'driving efficiency' is 30% ( by some previous poster ) and the grid were 100% efficient ( very not but what the hey ), and grid to battery is 85% do the sums:

77 petajoules x 2.8 x10⁸ kWh/ petajoule = 215x10⁸ kWh in petrol.

@ efficiency 30% less 85% conversion to battery that comes back to 7.6×10⁹ kWh more generation required to replace 2022 petrol use. Never mind the diesel.

NZ total generation 43500 gWn in 2023 .....43.5 x10⁹ kWh

7.6/43.5 is an extra 17%.never minding grid losses or passenger diesel or population growth. 7500 gWh of production added. Steady as she goes will get there.

You're talking 1 in every 6 production units being replicated. Can't be done. An absolute mess of wind and solar is what we are needing.

It used to be Yank Tanks and Gas Guzzlers. Won't be long before the micro EV owners look down their noses at the the Power Hog drivers aka Tesla drivers.

 

[Miggy]

We don't have enough power as it is when the hydro is in drought.

It's really as simple as that, the reason they have put the brakes on subsidising more EV onto the roads.

We got through 77 petajoules of petrol in 2022 almost entirely used by petrol driven cars.

if the 'driving efficiency' is 30% ( by some previous poster ) and the grid were 100% efficient ( very not but what the hey ), and grid to battery is 85% do the sums:

77 petajoules x 2.8 x10⁸ kWh/ petajoule = 215x10⁸ kWh in petrol.

@ efficiency 30% less 85% conversion to battery that comes back to 7.6×10⁹ kWh more generation required to replace 2022 petrol use. Never mind the diesel.

NZ total generation 43500 gWn in 2023 .....43.5 x10⁹ kWh

7.6/43.5 is an extra 17%.never minding grid losses or passenger diesel or population growth. 7500 gWh of production added. Steady as she goes will get there.

You're talking 1 in every 6 production units being replicated. Can't be done. An absolute mess of wind and solar is what we are needing.

It used to be Yank Tanks and Gas Guzzlers. Won't be long before the micro EV owners look down their noses at the the Power Hog drivers aka Tesla drivers.

So why did you buy an EV then?

 

[m3lol]

Obviously not everyone is switching to EV’s overnight.

You do realise peak demand is between 7-10am and 4-8pm. The rest of the time the grid just hums along normally, this is when charging EVs makes the most of those spinning turbines which need to keep going otherwise the grid gets into frequency issues.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

So why did you buy an EV then?

Economy in doing my work. I do a lot of miles and carry big loads. I needed a big EV. Tesla got the nod.

That's not what the thread is about. A better question would be why am I perfectly happy to pay for it myself and pay the RUC? I think I explained it all already.

Obviously not everyone is switching to EV’s overnight.

You do realise peak demand is between 7-10am and 4-8pm. The rest of the time the grid just hums along normally, this is when charging EVs makes the most of those spinning turbines which need to keep going otherwise the grid gets into frequency issues.

I never said the grid distribution couldn't cope with a massive uptake of EV charging. I said the capacity we have at the moment to produce the extra power reliably is very lacking.

Please re crunch my numbers and tell me I am wrong. I could have got a decimal out and it's 1.7%, but I double checked myself. Still, I'd love to be wrong!

 

[Charl]

Well, happy taxidriving, you got a great car to do it in.