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8:56 am, November 19th, 2025 - 14 comments
Categories: chris bishop, climate change, Environment, national, same old national, science, transport -
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I wrote this post in in January 2024 asking why National hates EVs.
I pointed out that in the first three months of the term not only had National cancelled the Auckland light rail project but it had also cancelled the clean car discount policy and moved quickly to impose road user charges on electric vehicles and plug in hybrids.
The Clean Car discount policy was working very well and EV numbers were skyrocketing. Sure the overall environmental benefit from EVs is complex and there are better things that we can do but EVs, particularly the smaller ones, are way better than gas guzzling utes.
And although road pricing was inevitable the haste with which it was introduced was in my view unwarranted. Despite the surge EVs only made up about 2% of the total fleet. Every incentive should be used to increase numbers. The slow down in the growth in EV numbers will only mean that the country will have to pay more for carbon credits because it appears inevitable we will not meet our international obligations.
And purchase decisions made now will have long term effects. As noted by the Climate Commission in its final advice to inform the Government’s plan to meet Aotearoa New Zealand’s greenhouse gas reduction goal for 2026–2030:
Decisions made in the second emissions budget period will impact Aotearoa New Zealand’s ability to meet the third emissions budget. For example, the large jump in emissions reductions expected
from transport in the third emissions budget relies on a rapid scaling up of electric vehicle sales in the 2020s. Without that early scaling up, a higher-emissions vehicle fleet will be locked in, making the necessary emissions reductions from transport more costly and disruptive.
The Commission’s conclusion about the success of the Clean Car discount policy is particularly galling. From the Commission’s advice:
[U]ptake of low-emissions vehicles has grown rapidly since the introduction of the Clean Car Discount in 2021, exceeding Te Manatū Waka Ministry of Transport’s modelled impact of the Clean Car policy package. The share of electric light vehicle registrations in 2022 grew to over 10% – a level not achieved until 2028 in the Ministry’s modelling. This also exceeds the Commission’s demonstration path, which projected a 6% share in 2022, reaching 11% in 2025. The share of hybrids also grew well beyond what was expected. This highlights the opportunity for electric and hybrid vehicles to deliver significantly higher and faster emissions reductions than previously thought.
Nearly two years on and the Government chose this week, the week that COP 30 is in full flight, to make a major announcement about the wind back of the clean car standard. This policy was intended to make kiwis buy more fuel efficient vehicles, just the sort of behaviour you would hope happened during a climate crisis.
The announcement is so tone deaf. Everyone except for Oil industry shills wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Why would you do something that increases the number of gas guzzling cars in the country’s car fleet?
And strong state action works. In China nearly half of new vehicles coming into the market are electric. In New Zealand in December 2023 the figure was 48.5%. The latest figure is 9%. This graph shows how awful the drop has been.
Chris Bishop was interviewed by Radio New Zealand yesterday morning on the subject.
Superficially he is really impressive. He is always uber confident and he always has a few compelling words to throw at any issue to show that he is right. And he has won a Labour friendly seat twice. I am sure he gets great kudos within National’s ranks for this.
He was at is disingenuous best. Without proof he said that there was a supply problem from overseas. He also claimed that the proposal was a tempory fix and that the environmental effect would be negligible. Whis makes it surprising the amount of media attention the Government bestowed on the announcement.
The announcement will be supported by:
Some of these people are National Party supporters and donors including Turner’s Grant Baker who donated $50,000 to both National and Act for the last election.
Hot on the heels of this announcement came news that New Zealand had been awarded a fourth fossil of the day award at the COP 30 talks and had slumped down the ranks of nations being measured in terms of their climate change response.
From Kate Newton at Radio New Zealand:
New Zealand has tumbled in an international climate-change league table, with authors now ranking it as “low-performing”.
The country fell three places to 44th in the Climate Change Performance Index, after already falling seven places last year.
The report’s authors said New Zealand’s continued slump was mainly due to a series of policy changes that amounted to “backsliding” on climate action.
Backsliding is right. This Government has made an art form of backsliding on climate change policies at a time when the need was so evident.
In this previous post I listed 54 different policy changes adversely affecting our climate change response that this Government had implemented.
Looks like we now have number 55.
Note on your market share graph of new vehicles, the primary shift wasn't back to petrol or diesel, but to hybrid vehicles. Granted they are a delay mechanism before going to full electric.
But it shows when we are making a new vehicle choice, we aren't going entirely backwards. I'll confess that was my work vehicle choice, precisely because the charging network is poor.
National's campaign+budget promise of a great nationwide network of recharges is now barely rating a ministerial shrug.
For the vast majority of us, however, we're just holding on to the old one longer and longer. Average car age a decade ago was 12 years, now it's 15 and rising. My home vehicle is 12 years old and TBH we're going to just keep repairing it for several years now.
Agree. I'm at 10 years now – and maintenance costs are starting to bite. But buying a new vehicle (whether EV or ICE ) is just not in the capital budget right now.
Much the same case with friends, family and co-workers. No new cars are popping up in garages near me.
Snap; ~12 years and just a tick over 50,000 km with only minor hiccups. Hoping for another uneventful 50,000 km, by which time my road-worthiness will be the problem.
In the same boat: Our car is a 2010, low petrol consumption (around 5 to 6 l / 100 km), and has run just over 60,000 km.
It's simply not economical to buy a new car with our driving habits. And while we could afford an electric car, it would probably not reduce the overall green house gas emissions, because the person buying / driving our current car would almost certainly drive more km per years compared to us.
We're probably better off loosening the import standards especially for vehicles with engine capacity 1.8L and under if it means we get an influx of cheaper more modern cars that allow people to upgrade and retire our some of the older cars in the fleet.
Yesterday evening, while driving into quiz night, I listened to the panel on RNZ.
Kirsten Corson, head of an EV user lobby group was fantastic. She pulled apart Bishops fabrications and outlined the reasons for the government's recent, regressive moves.
This was partly ICE vehicle manufacturers is they are losing money hand over fist. She also made the point that we need to develop second third fourth and fifth hand car market. This is done by encouraging businesses that buy fleets of vehicles.
This is such a simple policy to enact even if the trope is used that the Greens want it and labour can keep away from it.
Worth a listen.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thepanel/audio/2019013233/the-panel-with-sarah-perriam-lampp-and-peter-fa-afiu-part-1
The graph lumps all hybrids together-this is misleading.
Plug-in hybrids (PHEV) use between 1 and 3 litres per 100km while hybrids use between 3.5 and 6.5 litres per 100km.
https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/are-phevs-and-hybrid-cars-achieving-their-fuel-efficiency-claims
It is arguable that PHEV's should be lumped in with EV's as they run on electricity most of the time.
While the COC government twiddles its thumbs the Labour government has its act together in the UK:
“Sales of pure battery electric vehicles (BEV) grew by almost a third to 72,779 in September, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers (SMMT), while sales of plug-in hybrid cars grew even faster….sales of fully electric or hybrid vehicles made up more than half of all new car registrations in the UK last month.” (September 2025)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyd094168go
A bunch of those peaks and troughs will be tied to Tesla at one point there was a very long lead time from order to delivery and they tended to arrive into NZ in large shipments. Then partially due to saturation ie most people who wanted a tesla as a status symbol had one and Elon's various political adventures the demand for Tesla's fell off a cliff falling by 67% in 2024 from the 2023 peak.
https://www.interest.co.nz/technology/133156/teslas-new-zealand-vehicle-sales-cratered-and-profit-nosedived-last-year
That would be the Tesla with a p/e ratio of 212. Sell sell sell.
I just don't get it,even if climate change wasn't a thing , surly the noise and air pollution in cities would reduce greatly,?
Sitting in cues idling away gas must cost fortunes every year.
Going from maintaing a complicated ice vehicle to one with about 10 moving parts also seem a know brainer,
If I get to afford another vehicle before I toddle off I'll be aiming for ev
We should be basing charges as far as possible on scientific evidence, and measurements for each vehicle which are relatively easy to obtain. Costs to be recovered through charges are (1) the building and maintenance of roads (regardless of whether that is a local authority or government – part of charges should be shared); (2) air pollution at the point it leaves the vehicle; and possibly (3) noise pollution.
For damage to roads there is a political option as to whether road use should contribute to capital works such as new or replacement roads. That is a political issue, but damage clearly depends on weight and speed – that is why trucks have a lower speed limit than passenger cars. We can weigh each vehicle regularly at the time of Warrant of fitness. Air pollution and contribution to climate change targets can be measured as part of regular inspections and a scale developed, and noise pollution can be measured by a simple standard measure at idle and full throttle at testing. For ICE vehicles, part of charges can be included in fuel costs – thereby allowing for fuel use in off-road applications. Similar tests could be made for rail – so that those deciding on public transport have good information regarding relative costs between road, rail, gondola / cable cars, electric and ICE busses. There is a reason why the trucking organisations support National – let them try to argue against science . . .
This is me.
Also, I have voted Labour all my life.
It'll be a convenient combo of culture war and corruption. The coalition parties live on airquote donations airquote from Turners & co as well as fossil fuel companies. Promises of future board seats in those companies will play a role too.
"NZ politicians are not corrupt". They wait until they leave politics, before they collect their bribes, sorry, "well deserved board and management positions"!