PRICE ON … CAR WARS

Here we go again — the government tuning up our taste in cars

“The government has proposed a sweeping fuelefficient-vehicle policy that would make some cars up to $8000 cheaper while others would be $3000 more expensive!” states a recent opinion-paper headline.

Whatever next? We’ve previously had a registration system that depended (supposedly) on how big your vehicle was, to encourage us into less ‘gas-guzzling’ vehicles. That scheme was only recently scrapped. It wasn’t very effective, though, as my Mustang was cheaper to register than my Toyota! Now we have the ‘Feebate’ scheme, so-called because it is not a new tax, as there hasn’t been one — if you can believe government sources — but for the life of me I cannot understand how getting me to pay extra for buying a particular type of vehicle isn’t some sort of tax.

Wheeler-dealers

Predictably, this has upset used car importers, who will have to manage the process. Remember when import restrictions were loosened in the late 1980s? This saw organized car-buying tours to Japan by private individuals keen to buy a second-hand car that had bells and whistles as standard issue, not optional extras as here in New Zealand — a practice that cut out the dealers altogether!

Remember, also, the Saturdaymorning radio programme Cost Your Car, where you called in to get an estimate from a car dealer on the value of your car? If you mentioned that it was an import, it suddenly became worth nothing. The used car industry then lobbied the government of the day to further relax import licensing to allow dealers to import cars, and the floodgates opened. At the time, I thought it was funny that a privately imported car was worth nothing but a dealerimported one was suddenly valuable!

Conspiracy?

New car and used car importers are rarely on the same side, but on this they do agree: for many years, we have been told — mainly by the car industry — that our vehicle fleet is too old, with an average age of 14 years and climbing; also that we should really change our vehicles every five years — which the dealers would they appreciate very much for its additional contribution to their lifestyle. If anyone is any doubt that the used car industry does not have our interests at heart, witness the delay in implementing the frontal-impact standards!

The main problem for the importers is that there is now a fair bit of competition for second-hand vehicles in Japan; that is already squeezing their profit margins, and they don’t want a bar of anything that makes the vehicles that people want now — gas-guzzling SUVS — any more expensive.

EV or not EV

Second-hand electric-vehicle (EV) imports/sales have also hit a pothole, with allegations of impaired battery life among other claims, and, of course, if EVS really were so wonderful, wouldn’t the government be directing all its departments to buy them? You’d think so, but no. More important, you’d think that the cars provided to MPS at taxpayer expense would be EVS. Yeah, right! (Insert a Tui billboard here.) In addition, claims that they are cheap to run only hold water until road-user charges are introduced for them, as for diesel vehicles. And let’s not forget the claims about the nation’s power grid being unable to cope with the sudden drain if a street full of EVS decides to plug into the grid at the same time.

Pollution solution

Back to the ‘car wars’. Second-hand dealers are moaning, but the plan appears to be to wind down the import of heavy polluters, perhaps with the gradual introduction of emission standards, which would progressively get tougher over a three-year period, starting in 2022. That’s fine with me, as long as it applies only to future imports.

I guess what annoys me the most about this continued meddling with the standards surrounding imports, and the resulting effect on existing car prices, is that, back in the late 1980s, the first thing removed from an import was the emission-control system, “because it impaired performance”. Now that the country is filled with non-compliant cars, we’re expected to replace them, at great expense! If associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter were to require car dealers, at their own expense, to supply and retrofit emission controls to high-emitting imported vehicles already in the country, I’d be all for it. However, to impose higher standards retroactively on owners of cars that the government let dealers import, modify, and sell — cars that would be illegal in Japan — would be simply criminal. It hasn’t happened yet, but we should be wary of the fact that there have been no specific denials of retroactive emissions controls being introduced, because that would be the thin end of the wedge.

Hopefully, the government can see through the throng of lobbyists that even hinting at imposing such standards on our classic cars is tantamount to political suicide, and that the thousands of businesses that exist to service and maintain our classic vehicles are staffed with — wait for it — voters! I’ve owned one of my classic cars for 46 years, and another for 41 years. Read my lips, politicians: “I am not going to give up any of my classics for some hare-brained MP’S idea that I should switch to an EV” — and, neither, I would hazard a guess, will any other classic car owner!

I, for one, would like to see the Federation of Motoring Clubs step up to the plate and make it clear that classic and specialist cars are at risk in broad-brush government moves designed to manipulate the national fleet; it’s a fight many would be up for.

Drive safely, while you’re still allowed to!