Figures from BMI, part of Fitch Solutions, show the coalition government's removal of the Clean Car Discount and introduction of Road User Charges (RUCs) hit the electric vehicle (EV) market hard in the near term.
Due to the negative impact of the policy changes, the BMI analysts forecast New Zealand EV sales to decline by more than 64% this year, to 10,200 units.
This represents 11.4% of the passenger vehicle market. BMI used Motor Industry Association (MIA) figures for its research.
Despite the steep drop in EV sales, BMI thinks sales next year will grow by almost 55% to 16,600 vehicles, which would represent 16.3% of the total passenger vehicle market.
BMI said Chinese-made EVs like those from BYD and MG will play a significant role in driving market growth in New Zealand, due to their competitive pricing and value offering for cost-conscious customers.
National's pledge to deliver 10,000 EV chargers by 2030 around the country is also "crucial to sustain EV demand over the medium to long term" as it helps diminish range anxiety among owners of the battery-powered vehicles.
ChargeNet remains the main provider of EV charging stations, but it is facing competition nationwide from Open Loop, BP, and Z Energy.
Electric commercial vehicles (ECVs) is a slightly different story to passenger ones, BMI noted. After growing almost five fold from a low base in 2022, ECVs grew only slightly to 600 units in 2023.
That left the ECV market penetration rate at 1.4% of the total in 2023, but it could grow to 1.6% this year, with around 700 units being sold.
For 2025, BMI forecasts volumes grow by 104% to 1,500 ECVs, doubling the sales.
Whether or not New Zealand will go with its earlier target of banning imports of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by 2040, and aiming for nearly all vehicles brought into the country to be EVs by 2035 remains uncertain.
In July this year, Transport Minister Simeon Brown said New Zealand would align its Clean Car Importer Standard with Australia, to ensure affordability of vehicles.
Across the Tasman, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) has announced ICE cars will be banned by 2035. No other state or territory have yet to issue such an edict though, which could put the nation's net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050 in jeopardy.
24 Comments
I always thought that the clean car subsidy that got canned recently was a great idea. Incentivize more people into small fuel-efficient vehicles. Reshape our whole vehicle fleet over a few years and improve our balance of payments and greenhouse emissions by not importing and burning so much petrol. Win Win.
It subsidised the well off for $60k? Teslas. At the time i think the cheapest was a leaf at ~50k. Recall checking the leaf price a week or two before the subsidies came in. There were two leaf models, a basic and another one about 3-5k more expensive. Within a month or so the basic model was no longer listed and the more expensive one had increased in price around $2-4k
Middleaged,
Subsidies are always distortionary. All it did was give money back to those who needed it least-people who could afford to pay upwards of $40,000 and that excludes most of the population. That money could have gone to many better causes, such as health and education.
Maybe some discounts are on the way?
The starting price of Tesla’s cheapest model at around $31,900 in China is more than triple the sticker price of BYD’s lowest-priced model. That is the Seagull, an all-electric hatchback starting at $9,900
Tesla vs BYD: why US maker might have to expand its EV range (ft.com)
Why are they trying so hard to replicate the complete and utter failure that is the Mirai?
Hydrogen is a failed idea for passenger cars. It might have some use for larger vehicles where the cost of electricity infrastructure is too high, particularly for construction projects and other temporary usage, but hydrogen will only make sense if appearing green is more important than actually being green.
Both those links go to articles that reek of press releases issued by Toyota's marketing department, republished without an appropriate engineer critiquing it first.
Metal embrittlement, hydrogen leaks, hydrogen's energy inefficiency compared to electricity, in-car tank size and weight, time taken to compress the hydrogen are a few of the things that need to be taken into account before taking the plunge and buying a hydrogen powerred vehicle.
Toyota are better off diverting their research into ammonia fueled engines: Next big thing in fuel? Ammonia engines offer cleaner alternative - Interesting Engineering
EVs are the poorest investment - (this is a money site) greatest depreciation, lack of ability to repair.
Articles like this really give me the shits because;
- We do not have the electrical infrastructure in the ground to support the proposed roll out of chargers.
- The subsidy was tax payer funded - it burdened us with no upside, how did the Country benefit? How could that $$ be put to better use in your community? It seemed to favour the few.
- Roads cost money RUCs! - why should EV not pay for their upkeep? Hell a Tesla model 3 is comparable to a Holden Ute. EVs are 20-30% heavier than their comparable petrol counterparts, so more damage to the roads. But for some reason the entitled think they should be provided free roads so they can feel good about themselves!
- We do not have free power, we import dirty coal to keep our lights on now, more subsidised EVs won’t change this.
/rant over. 🤙🏼
RUCs came in for BEVs and PHEVs from the first of April this year (okay, to be fair, the 31st of May this year).
The country benefitted from the reduction in reliance on imported fuels and reduced pollution. It also means there are a few less cars clogging up service stations.
Clever EV owners (and to be sure, some are not clever at all) charge their cars at night when power demands are low.
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