{"id":145086,"date":"2025-11-20T18:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/145086\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T18:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T18:00:10","slug":"officials-warn-of-higher-petrol-costs-from-emissions-standard-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/145086\/","title":{"rendered":"Officials warn of higher petrol costs from emissions standard change"},"content":{"rendered":"

National supported the principle of the clean car standard, but disagreed with the way the standard was set. On coming into Government, then-Transport Minister Simeon Brown weakened the standard<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"InternationalInternational EV sales. Source \/ Ministry of Transport<\/p>\n

On Monday, Transport Minister Chris Bishop announced the Government would temporarily weaken it again, cutting charges under the standard by nearly 80% while it was placed under review. The cuts would last for two years. <\/p>\n

Bishop said conditions in the vehicle market had necessitated the change, with \u201cmost importers \u2026 unable to meet the passenger-vehicle targets\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said 86% of importers were facing charges under the scheme, which, if not relaxed, could amount to $264m \u2013 fees which would be passed on to vehicle consumers.<\/p>\n

The high number of importers facing charges under the scheme is because there were a small number of importers who claimed most credits under the scheme because they mainly or exclusively imported EVs, officials said in the RIS. <\/p>\n

The Motor Industry Association, quoted in the RIS, said to meet the current targets, about 20% of the light vehicle market would need to be EVs, up from about 13%.<\/p>\n

The primary challenge for new vehicle importers is reduced consumer demand for EVs, which is being driven, in part, by weak economic conditions. Data from the MIA shows that, to meet the current targets, 20% of the new light vehicle market share would need to be EVs in 2025. Currently the share is around 13%, however, the MIA state that the actual share is only around 7% as many vehicle registrations are sales within the industry. <\/p>\n

Bishop thought the spike in EV sales in 2023 might have been \u201cartificial\u201d as motorists knew the coalition was likely to repeal the subsidies, so they piled in and bought EVs before it was scrapped.<\/p>\n

He agreed the end of the discount scheme was the likely cause of the decline in EV sales. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you remove free money from people, general economic principle dictates that it has an impact on demand,\u201d Bishop said. <\/p>\n

Bishop has said a challenge was that New Zealand\u2019s car fleet was dependent on exports from Japan<\/a>, whose car manufacturers have been slow to pivot to EVs. Japan supplies about 95% of New Zealand\u2019s used vehicles and about 40% of new cars. Japan was the only other country surveyed by officials to see a decline in the proportion of EV sales. <\/p>\n

Officials supported the option chosen by the Government to reduce the charge rate. They warned it \u201cincreases the risk of more inefficient, high-emitting vehicles entering the market due to the lower charges reducing fuel savings and increasing emissions\u201d. <\/p>\n

Green Party transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter agreed Japan could not meet New Zealand\u2019s demand for second-hand EVs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all the more reason to have policies that support a large amount of EVs coming in as brand new vehicles, as company cars, because then those flow through to the second-hand market,\u201d Genter said.<\/p>\n

Genter said the Government\u2019s changes unfairly penalised vehicle importers that had worked hard to meet the standard and \u201crewarded those who refuse to change\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said that failing to shift to EVs would penalise motorists over the long run.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means they will be locked into these vehicles for many many years having to pay higher fuel costs,\u201d Genter said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National supported the principle of the clean car standard, but disagreed with the way the standard was set.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,6799,12974,802,12700,97648,679,71,266,305,13484,45613,111,139,69,1118,10711,22126,31842,26096,6122,667,97649,1177,81566,26697,5977],"class_list":["post-145086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cars","tag-change","tag-costs","tag-emissions","tag-finger","tag-forced","tag-from","tag-government","tag-have","tag-higher","tag-imported","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-officials","tag-petrol","tag-pointed","tag-relax","tag-rules","tag-sales","tag-slumping","tag-standard","tag-temporarily","tag-warn","tag-which"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}