Russell Bell: No spark or drive for electric cars

The clean car discount for electric vehicles came in on April 1. Photo / NZME

Comment

April Fool's day has come and gone, and with it, I kept watch for any humorous faux articles in national and local media - in times like these we all need a laugh.

Parody stories were in short supply this year, but one thing which did happen on April 1 was the completion of the rollout of the "Clean Car Discount" for electric vehicles.

I am pleased that the Labour/Green Government has conspired to add more inflation to non-productive assets like my car by slapping a levy on the current and future petrol-fuelled fleet - kudos.

But, like a good many of the policies that have been thrust on New Zealand homes and businesses since 2017, there are plenty of unintended consequences which will flow through in the days and months to come.

The first is yet another fiscal hit job on the productive sector.

If you own a small business and need to replace your van or ute, working vehicles now cost significantly more than they did a week ago.

In spite of the virtue signalling optimism of the Prime Minister that Toyota (and others) would bring "EV utes" to the market, this appears some way off.

And Tesla's proposed ute looks more like it came from the set of Logan's Run than it will have any practical use for your everyday tradie.

But, hey, this is in keeping with the apparent political strategy of creating opportunities to get richer for those that own assets while those who take risks and produce anything are locked into lower returns.

As I think I have stated before in this column, any economy where used cars are increasing in value has issues.

Anyhow, the tax on petrol and diesel vehicles is so that electric vehicles and hybrids can be subsidised.

Which is at first glance appears to be a good thing, until you realise that the subsidy is capped and if you want a vehicle that will take you further than Taupo without recharging (most people have reason to drive further than that) you are bang out of luck.

Surely the Government would have been better to subsidise all electric vehicles and bring their price down to compete with normally aspirated vehicles?

What I think is going to happen, is that people will not be able to (or will choose not to) upgrade their vehicle and will defer that for as long as they can.

As cars get older, they will become less efficient and pollute more, all the while inflation will render new and more fuel-efficient vehicles (and electrics) out of the reach of many.

And we don't even have time to discuss whether EVs are reliable.

Then there's the strain this will put on the national grid as more EVs hit the road, are we going to import more coal to cover that?

Or have we thought about whether there is a plan for disposing of spent car batteries versus the true carbon cost of an EV (which compares favourably only against the mining of bitcoin but not much else).

After thinking about that has anyone thought about the disposal of the petrol-powered fleet and many, many more consequences surely to come? Maybe, in a year or two, we might look back and wonder if this new tax was actually an April Fool's joke after all.