We’ve just had an election based budget in Australia and not a mention of climate change. Our head in the sand government hasn’t a clue or is simply bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry. Amazing how a few brown paper bags stuffed full of “political bribes donations” can corrupt a democracy.
We all had hopes our new shiny PM, Malcolm Turnbull, having had his picture taken outside Tesla Motors would take us in a new direction. He came up with the ‘Innovation’ catch cry but it’s simply sounding like another empty political election slogan these days.
Approval of the obscene Adani coal mine without a blush of shame, continued subsidies to the fossil fuel industry of $5 – $7 billion annually, blatant disregard of the increasing daily evidence of accelerated climate change. Turnbull has been SUCH a disappointment that at MEC we think it’s really Tony Abbott wearing one of those Mission Impossible latex masks.
Meanwhile from our Kiwi cousins the following: “It’s clear that electric vehicles are the future. A move from petrol and diesel to low-emission transport is a natural evolution, and it is our aim to encourage that switch sooner, rather than later,” stated the New Zealand Energy and Transport Minister Simon Bridges. He continued: “If we start to replace New Zealand’s fleet with electric vehicles, we can begin to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.” What a breath of fresh air and simple common sense.
Why didn’t we think of eliminating our addiction to foreign oil, cleaning up our toxic city air, reducing the huge impost on our health system, improving our balance of payments while reducing our greenhouse emissions. Maybe that’s too radical for our “innovative” leaders.
So the NZ government has announced:
- A target of doubling the number of electric vehicles in New Zealand every year to reach approximately 64,000 by 2021
- Extending the Road User Charges exemption on light electric vehicles until they make up two percent of the light vehicle fleet
- A new Road User Charges exemption for heavy electric vehicles until they make up two percent of the heavy vehicle fleet
- Work across Government and private sector to investigate the bulk purchase of electric vehicles
- Government agencies coordinating activities to support the development and roll-out of public charging infrastructure including providing information and guidance
- $1 million annually for a nation-wide electric vehicle information and promotion campaign over five years
- A contestable fund of up to $6 million per year to encourage and support innovative low emission vehicle projects
- Allowing electric vehicles in bus lanes and high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the State Highway network and local roads
- Review of tax depreciation rates and the method for calculating fringe benefit tax to ensure electric vehicles are not being unfairly disadvantaged
- Establishing an electric vehicles leadership group across business, local and central government.
Oh and they will be closing their last two coal fired power stations by 2018. It’s so embarrassing to have our tiny neighbour show us the way, state the obvious and join the rest of the developed world in encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles. The Czech Republic has incentives for EVs, Romania has incentives for EVs, Greece (yes Greece) has incentives for EVs – virtually the whole of Europe, North America, China, India, Japan all have incentives for EVs.
It is simply a disgrace that the Australian tax payer picks up the tab for the $5 billion in annual health costs due to petrol and diesel toxic emissions in Australia while our government’s largesse is splashed sycophantically on the fossil fuel industry. It gets curiouser and curiouser.
Yes, the Australian Government’s espoused values are a long way from its practised values. They won’t even say what the action is in their ‘direct action’ plan!!!! Seems more like ‘inaction’ is their goal. Business as usual they say – not good enough Mr Turnbull. How can Australian business, particularly manufacturing, be internationally competitive when they will be paying excess for fossil fuel energy when the rest of the world, including the developing countries are moving more and more towards cheaper and cleaner emissions free renewables. In the words of David Cameron, a conservative himself, “The economies of Europe that will prosper are those that are the greenest and most energy efficient”. I bought an i3 partly because the company manufactured that car largely using emissions free energy and the country of origin is taking their CO2 emission responsibilities seriously. People and other nations are more and more supporting industries and nations that are pulling their weight on CO2 reductions. I think there will be blow back to Australia for the short sightedness of the current Federal government. 50 billion dollars on a submarine fleet for some imagined but unlikely threat over the next 30 years or 50 billion dollars on fighting a real and ever present danger to our national economy, prosperity, security and health – global warming. Hhmm – now what makes more sense?
I wouldn’t be too excited about NZ’s EV policies. Yes, at least they *have* one, which is more than can be said for Australia, but it still falls far short of the norm in Europe and elsewhere in the OECD. There is no – if one will forgive the pun – “direct action” to reduce the price at purchase of EVs, nor to encourage build out of the charging network, and these is the major stumbling blocks to EV uptake. Offering perks like bus lane access and user charge exemptions for EVs, and “advice” on charging are just not significant enough to make a meaningful impact.
Direct subsidy incentives are problematic, for sure. There is a lot of issues surrounding the egalitarian principles of such actions. A brand new EV is an expensive purchase, and you are effectively subsidizing those rich enough to buy a big new car. However, concern for equality and a fair deal for the poor are hardly hallmarks of Key’s government. I maintain that the govt’s avoidance of incentives isn’t due to this, but simply an unwillingness to make a real hard cash policy commitment, in favour of warm words and token gestures.
At the end of the day, direct cash incentives *work*, as we have seen in Europe and the USA. And they work well. They get people out of ICEs and into EVs. And while there are problems with equalities (GST on the poor subsidizing a Tesla) there are easy ways to solve this issue, by using a progressive subsidy that provides the greatest support to people buying the cheapest cars, with subsidy tailing off for more expensive models. I.e.
Price —— Subsidy
$70 —— No subsidy (Max possible subsidy = $0)
As the example above shows, this direct incentive scheme maintains a strongly progressive stance that actively helps people on lower incomes purchase a vehicle that will directly help their financial position by having far lower fuel costs, as well as lower maintenance costs and improved reliability, as well as shift NZ away from ICE and fossil fuel dependence.
A second major benefit of this structure is that it provides an incentive to EV manufacturers to drive down EV prices in order to make their vehicles eligible for bigger incentives and thus tempt more buyers, speeding the closing of the gap with ICE vehicles and speeding the timetable for EVs able to compete directly.
For charging infrastructure, the government could offer subsidized loans (i.e. 2% interest following a 5 year repayment holiday) to companies developing charging networks that meet minimum technical requirements (i.e. Fully publicly accessible 24/7, properly signed, Chademo and CCS compliant, 100kw ready, along with strict standards for pricing and transparency), as well as smaller direct grants for companies to install destination charging at their premises – again with strict minimum standards.
These could be funded in an extremely effective manner by using congestion charging for private ICE vehicles in CBDs of Auckland and Wellington. This would have a multiplier effect whereby the money raised for the funding of incentives would in itself be a push factor in EV adoption, *and* would directly reduce congestion and air pollution in the main cities, and the associated quality of life, environmental and financial costs. This would likely raise considerably more than needed for the direct incentives, and the surplus could be added to the excellent idea of a contestable fund for low-emission vehicle projects.
If people are genuinely worried about policy “locking in” technology decisions, then simply open the above to fuel cell vehicles and stations as well, though my personal position is that it is better to make a choice here and now about battery or hydrogen and avoid the nightmare of resources squandered on mutually incompatible infrastructure and development pathways.
Thanks for your comments Krystal. I would suggest another way to pay for EV subsidies and infrastructure costs is simply to increase the ‘excise’ (tax) on petrol and diesel.
Krystal, I like your thinking. The progressive subsidy processes, ensure a degree of calibration of public money’s relative to need, make it easier for all to adopt the new technology and thus would accelerate uptake better than a flat rate incentivization, that may seem fair but actually can only be taken advantage of by those who least need it. Of course the other side of the incentivisation coin is disincentives to behaviours and technologies you want to replace. Gee, a carbon tax might work well, but may also penalise the poor as well. Thanks of your thoughtful words.
Krystal. Your comments make good sense. I live in regional Australia and would love to run an EV for commuting in my town. To make EV viable in OZ the state government would need to delegate road traffic powers to local Councils. For example, registration fees could be waived for EV s operating within say 50k of the regional town CBD. Council carparks could be equipped with recharging bays powered by solar power during business hours.
At the State and Federal level a inverse subsidy based on depreciated cost of EV as at 30 june should be paid to the owner as at that date. In other words the lower the depreciated value the higher the subsidy. This would encourage long term ownership of EV and also for manufacturers to lower purchase price on 30 June each year to compete for best subsidy.
Somehow, all the great ideas on this website need to raised in the public consciousness. How is this to be done?