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National and ACT reaffirm plans to cancel Clean Car Discount (autotalk.co.nz)

submitted 1 year ago by eagleeyedtiger to c/politics

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] Dave 2 points 1 year ago

Interestingly, having just come back from Auckland, I was astounded at the number of 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

I'm less surprised. Down around Wellington, there are Teslas everywhere. But also, there are shiny clean $80,000 utes everywhere too.

I think it's important to understand that the point of the rebate is not to subsidise the less fortunate to buy new cars. The point is that when someone who was already going to buy a new car looks at the options, they find EVs to be at a comparable price point to the petrol equivalent. It's to incentivise new cars to be electric, because new cars become the second hand cars of tomorrow. No one buying a new car needs a subsidy, but if it's not there then people are more likely to choose petrol options.

There was another scheme planned aimed at making EV use affordable for low income drivers (social leasing scheme), but this was canned at the time Jacinda stepped down and the govt did a reset of projects.