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Tim Dower: Carrot and stick approach to e-vehicles won't work

Author
Tim Dower,
Publish Date
Tue, 9 Jul 2019, 11:23AM
Julie Anne Genter is spearheading the calls to discount e-vehicles. (Photo / NZ Herald)

Tim Dower: Carrot and stick approach to e-vehicles won't work

Author
Tim Dower,
Publish Date
Tue, 9 Jul 2019, 11:23AM

The Government is today announcing a scheme which it says will put cleaner cars on the roads - in particular, electric cars.

And it's going about this in a carrot and stick fashion.

There'll be a discount for cars which have lower CO2 emissions. How this comes to pass, we have yet to see, and there'll be a fine - a tax - for cars which put out more CO2.

You don't have to like it, but so far we understand it.

They are doing this because they want is to get us down to an average emission target of 161 grams per kilometre. Following me?

For example, the car I'm currently driving is a ute. Nothing flash, but it's a 2.4 litre engine with a big space in the back for the dog. That’s 251 grams of CO2 a kilometre, so I'm in trouble.

By 2025, I'm in huge trouble. The target then would be 105g of CO2 per kilometre.

So what they want to do is basically force me into a smaller car, and therefore a smaller dog.

Buy a Ford Ranger in a couple of years from now and they'll FINE you just over 2,000. Buy a Toyota Hilux - two grand fine. Buy a Triton or a Colorado – 2,500 fine.

There's your stick. But here's the carrot, which they're calling the Clean Car Discount.

This is a scheme by which you get a discount if you buy a low emission vehicle. In 2021, it could be up to $8,000 off a new zero-emission car, so your Hyundai Ioniq comes down from $59k to $51k.

But of course, there's a catch.  The top price to qualify for a discount is 80,000. So forget your Tesla.

This is not such a bad idea in theory, but in practice, I dunno. It's complicated, it's messy and it's wide open to rorting by the car dealers.

If people want an electric car, they'll go out and buy one. And when an electric car performs like a petrol one - when they can go the distance without taking a week to recharge - we'll all be driving them.

Meddling with the market now, hoping to force people into vehicles that don't do what we want, just won't work.

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