Country’s top car seller says a feebate a must to get wheels moving

NEW Zealand risks becoming the “Cuba of the South Pacific”, a dumping ground of Europe’s dirty diesels and high carbon-emitting petrol-fuelled cars.

That’s the view of Toyota New Zealand’s chief executive officer, Neeraj Lal, reacting to recent occurrences of political shift toward encouraging a shift from fossil fuels and toward more environmental motoring solutions, including battery-motivated products.

His comments come in the wake of two big headline actions: The move by the United Kingdom to ban sale of new fossil-fuelled cars after 2030 and our own Government’s determination this week to formally joined 32 other countries around the world in declaring a state of climate emergency for New Zealand. 

The NZ initiative brings with it a revitalised focus on electrifying its public service vehicle fleet, thorough prioritising fully electric and hybrid cars, and plans to become carbon neutral by 2025. 

That’s conceivably a switch Toyota NZ cannot leverage to advantage as much as some other brands as even though Toyota hybrid cars are highly favoured by private and fleet buyers, they are not considered electric models, because they lack facility to recharge off the mains.

The Government’s climate response decision has been welcomed by not-for-profit pressure group Drive Electric, though this organisation - which involves 17 new car brands, including TNZ - says the move still doesn’t go far enough.

Mr Lala says the UK’s move is both an encouragement to New Zealand policy-makers and a danger sign that this country could be flooded with used internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles at the end of this decade.
 
New Zealand needs to work urgently on the right policy settings that encourage much higher take up of electrified vehicles through meaningful financial incentives, he said today. 

“We also need to make sure that we do not end up importing vast numbers of ICE passenger vehicles. Otherwise there is no hope of meeting the Paris Agreement’s 2050 net-zero carbon target.”

A push by new vehicle distributors, via their representative body, the Motor Industry Association, to introduce the ‘feebate’ that incentivises purchase of low and no-emissions cars has TNZ’s support. Mr Lala said the scheme, proposed in the last Parliamentary term by kyboshed by the Government’s then-partner, NZ First, has much merit.

The core element of the scheme is that it incentivises private and fleet buyers of low-emitting vehicles by adding a levy to high-emitting vehicles and using that revenue to reduce the price of low-emitting vehicles costing less than $80,000.

Mr Lala also reminds that the era of Covid-19 has affected car makers ability to produce and ship vehicles.

“As the worldwide supply of hybrid and battery electric vehicles becomes stretched due to global demand, New Zealand will find it harder and harder to access stock without a financial incentive.

“Essentially, we need to get our hybrid and EV numbers up to get higher stock allocations.  

“The feebate scheme should be back on the table, urgently. Toyota New Zealand has opened a dialogue with the Minister of Transport, Michael Wood, and will continue to advocate for financial incentives for electrified vehicles.”

TNZ is easily the biggest seller of mild hybrid vehicles in this country – and is now seeing hybrid editions of popular models outselling their fully fossil-fuelled equivalents. However none will conceivably be considered when Government weans off fossil-fuelled cars in public service use and into electric models, as proposed.

The market leader has just one plug-in hybrid car, a version of the Prius, but will add another, in the form of a PHEV edition of its most model of the moment, the RAV4. It has plans to deliver an electric car in 2021.

Mr Lala has applauded Government for confronting environmental issues, but says it needs to put financial resources behind its policy.

“Companies such as Toyota (NZ) would be willing to supply the public sector with low-emitting vehicles, but not at cost – it needs to be a win-win for both parties.
 
“With transport emissions accounting for nearly 20 percent of all carbon output, we have a large influence on how New Zealand will progress to a zero-carbon economy. The transition to a low emissions transport market comes with a price tag, but the cost of not enabling a greater uptake of low emissions vehicle could cost Aotearoa/New Zealand and the planet a lot more.”