this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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I'm curious to know what others think of this.

I'm personally for keeping it as I see the benefit coming in a few years having many more EV's available in the second hand market. Currently it's pretty much dominated by mainly Nissan Leaf's at the lower end of the secondhand market.

I know of a few people as well who have bought EV/Hybrids recently that would not have even considered going for EV's or even hybrids without the rebate.

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[–] eagleeyedtiger 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Tesla’s on the road - given their price point, it would seem that the EV rebate is going to people who arguably don’t need it

Can you explain what you mean by this? There are a lot of used and imported Tesla's being sold now. There are 105 used Tesla's showing on Trademe right now and most won't get the rebate. A freshly imported second hand Tesla that hasn't been registered here yet will get the same $3450 rebate as a $15k freshly imported Leaf. Tesla's styling hasn't been changed at all for some time, so unless you know what you're looking for it's difficult to tell if the Tesla you saw is a 6-7 year old model or a brand new one.

I thought the goal of the rebate is to drive low emission vehicle adoption, with EV's being the newest technology the higher end of the market is where it would be happening first. You can still get partial rebates on imported used Hybrids and EV's depending on that model's emissions.

[–] Axisential 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My point is that Tesla falls firmly into luxury car price range - so rather than incentivising 'average' people to choose an EV equivalent of say a Toyota Corolla, which will then trickle down as it's sold and resold, we're getting an overrepresentation of Merc and BMW buyers choosing Tesla. Perhaps that's to help do their part to reduce emissions, perhaps as a status symbol - it arguably doesn't matter. What does matter is that it appears we're seeing more of the luxury EVs than 'affordable' EVs - and that's going to matter deeply when it comes to adopttion by the masses.

[–] eagleeyedtiger 2 points 1 year ago

I think the issue then is in terms of pure zero emission vehicles in the last few years Tesla’s have had the most value in terms of technology, range, battery longevity. This is slowly changing. Even now you can get a new MG4 at $40k after rebate which is firmly in the same price range of a new Corolla. We’re starting to see more and more lower priced EV’s coming out from the likes of BYD, Opel, GWM. The real problem is that we’re waiting for the other manufacturers to start releasing EV’s to market.

Have a look on evdb.nz and you can see that there are quite a few models now that are in the 40k range after rebate which is within a new Corolla pricing. More affordable new EV’s are coming, it’s just that the major manufacturers are playing catch up, while Tesla has been doing it from the start, which is why you’re seeing more of them.