‘Carrots’ to stop sticking with petrol

Survey of electric vehicle owners finds cash incentives needed for 2025 goal

The Government will have to offer up more carrots if it wants motorists to swap petrol for power, a survey of electric vehicle owners has found. More than three-quarters of owners who took part in a new poll believed cash incentives would be needed if more than half of new vehicle registrations were to be electric by 2025.

Of more than 66,000 new or used light vehicle registrations in the first three months of this year, just over 800 were EVs.

As at last month, New Zealand’s electric fleet stood at 9241 — although that was still a big leap from the 206 EVs recorded at the same time five years ago.

Emeritus Professor Henrik Moller, of the University of Otago’s Centre for Sustainability, has been tracking the views of hundreds of Kiwi EV owners as part of a citizen science project dubbed Flip the Fleet.

“We are constantly fielding questions about costs and the practicality of EVs,” he said.

“The higher cost of buying an EV puts many people off, even though their running costs are a lot lower than for a combustion vehicle of about the same size and power.

“Finding a way to subsidise the initial purchase and further reduce EV running costs would be a game changer in New Zealand.”

The survey findings suggested subsidisation of new EVs was the main way that New Zealand could secure enough supply of high-quality EVs to meet demand.

“There will be a huge scramble for the EVs around the world in the coming decade, so our relatively small market is unlikely to compete unless we subsidise the manufacturers, dealers and purchasers to buy electric vehicles.”

New Zealand had so far built its EV fleet mainly by importing secondhand cars from Japan and the UK.

New Zealand had thereby indirectly benefited from subsidies paid to the original owners by the Japanese and UK governments, Moller said.

“Reliance on secondhand EVs means we get the new EV technology late and the manufacturer’s warranty is voided when it is exported from its country of origin,” he said.

“We are soon going to have to pay our own way by subsidising purchase of new EVs for sale in New Zealand if we are to secure an adequate supply of the latest high-quality EVs with full manufacturers’ support.”

The most favoured financial intervention suggested by the EV owners was a system of “feebates” where highly emitting combustion vehicles were penalised by having to pay higher registration fees.

This additional fee — recently proposed in a Productivity Commission report looking at how to shift to a low-carbon economy — was then transferred and distributed across the lower-emitting vehicles like hybrids and electric vehicles. “It’s just another form of the polluter pays principle,” he said.

The higher cost of buying an EV puts many people off.

Henrik Moller