New Zealand Subsidisation of Electric Vehicles

New Zealand is taking action to support the sale of electric vehicles:

Nowadays, both national and local governments are both encouraging and subsidizing the use of electric vehicles, through various incentives. In New Zealand, according to Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter, “The cars, utes, and vans we use every day are also the fastest-growing source of harmful climate pollution and account for nearly 70 percent of our transport emissions”.

The pricing of electric cars will be subsidised

In its effort to respect and uphold the Zero Carbon Bill (with the future goal of reducing our carbon emissions to net-zero) and to make greener cars significantly more affordable for kiwis, the New Zealand government has just announced its plans to subsidise the price of imported both electric and hybrid vehicles by up to $8000. It has also announced plans to tax the import of vehicles with the highest greenhouse gas emissions by up to $3000. The discount will, therefore, be funded by the import tax of less green cars, but will not affect vehicles already registered in New Zealand.

How will the legislation help reduce emissions?

A consultation period has just begun before the Government introduces this new legislation into Parliament later this year. According to the Associate Transport Minister, this strategy will enable more kiwis to transition into cleaner, greener vehicles by reducing the cost. She also stated: “These changes would prevent more than 5 million tonnes of dangerous climate pollution going into our atmosphere and would make a major contribution to meeting New Zealand’s climate targets” and would also save the country more than an estimated $3.4 billion in fuel, resulting in the savings of more than $6,800 over the lifetime of an average vehicle.