OPINION: These vehicles are helping clean up New Zealand’s emissions act – but bureaucracy won’t recognise them. Why?

PITY the poor petrol-electric hybrid. You know – the vehicle that is electrified but doesn’t need to be plugged-in to be charged. Yeah that’s the one – the vehicle that’s currently selling like the proverbial hot cakes in New Zealand.

So why pity the hybrid? Its because as a vehicle type, it’s stuck in a sort of environmental no-man’s land.

On one hand, the Government refuses to recognise them. Its Ministry of Transport says hybrids cannot be considered electric vehicles because their batteries cannot be charged from an external electric source. So hybrids are not included in Government statistics on the size of this country’s EV fleet.

But on the other hand, the motor industry does recognise them. The Motor Industry Association says the Government view is too narrow and ignores technologies which are achieving fuel consumption the equivalent or better than plug-in hybrids.

That includes hydrogen by the way, because vehicles carrying that new technology can’t be plugged-in either, despite the fact the so-called ‘green’ hydrogen is 100 per cent emissions-free.

But through all of this, the hybrid itself probably doesn’t care. That’s because it is selling in far greater numbers than EVs. Last month, for example, 1045 hybrids were registered new in New Zealand.

As an aside, within that statistic there’s another statistic that dramatically underlines the current popularity of hybrids. Of those 1045 registrations, 641 of them were Toyota RAV4 hybrids – which represented 80.5 per cent of all RAV4s registered last month.

The overall story of Toyota hybrids is impressive. In 2017 the brand sold 1337 of them, this increased to 5159 last year, and to July this year there have been 3627 sold. And the hybrid sales growth will surely continue next year following the recent launch of the new Yaris hybrid, and scheduled future launches of hybrid versions of the Highlander SUV and possibly even Hilux ute.

Not only that, but we’ve also now got Suzuki in the game with the new Swift hybrid, and Subaru with the e-Boxer models.    

Meanwhile, while hybrid sales are going great guns, EV sales aren’t. Last month a measly 90 EV and 69 PHEV vehicle were registered new, and 317 registered used. All this goes to show that despite the Government’s push to encourage kiwi motorists to buy EVs, the change isn’t happening anywhere near as quickly as anticipated.

Back in 2016 the Government introduced its Electric Vehicles Programme, which among other things exempted owners of EVs from paying Road User Charges until the end of 2021 or until EVs made up 2 per cent of the national vehicle fleet, whichever came first.

The aim was to have at least 64,000 EVs on our roads by the end of next year. It’s now obvious that’s not going to happen – as of July this year the national EV fleet size (both those purchased new and imported used from Japan) was 21,568 vehicles, which represented about 0.5 per cent of the total national light vehicle fleet which has just moved past 4 million.

It’s a pity, because it is a given that action must be taken to protect New Zealand’s climate by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The light vehicles we drive are a vital part of this action, as transport accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all this country’s CO2 emissions – and light vehicles account for 70 per cent of that.

But the reality is that at this stage EVs are simply too expensive to buy, and range anxiety remains a big issue, particularly in regional New Zealand. And remember, while they are impressively inexpensive to run now, from December next year EVs will be hit with RUCs of $76 per 1000 km, which will add an average of close to $900 to their annual operating costs.

So what’s a motorist with an environmental conscience to do? The obvious economical answer is to buy hybrid until the market has finally reached the stage where full EVs are fully affordable, with better range on a single charge, and there is a comprehensive nation-wide charging network properly up and running.

That way, the motorists concerned can at least make some contribution to reducing the nation’s exhaust emissions. That’s because while hybrids still run on the dreaded fossil fuel (aka petrol), they are generally far more economical than standard petrol models – for example, whereas a 2.5-litre all-wheel drive petrol-engined RAV4 has average exhaust emissions of 156g/km, the hybrid version’s emissions are 112 g/km.

Adding to this scenario is the matter of what the Government – whichever one it is in the wake of the September election – is going to do next.

Last year the current Government proposed its Clean Car Initiative which contains some very good ideas. It envisages a Clean Car Standard (a fuel efficiency standard) and a Clean Car Discount (a feebate scheme that would apply a rebate or penalty depending on exhaust emissions), all to financially discourage motorists away from gas guzzlers and towards smaller, more fuel efficient cars – and in particular, EVs.

Trouble is, a few weeks ago Government coalition partner New Zealand First put a stop to that plan, and the Greens responded by promising they would make the feebate proposal an election issue. The re-emergence of Covid-19 has prevented this from happening yet, but it is most likely it will happen.

Meanwhile, we have the transport and environmental bureaucrats desperately hoping kiwi motorists will join the EV cause. Truth be told, many would love to – but a lack of financial incentive other than not having to pay RUCs for a further 16 months, presents as a major barrier to this happening.

Let’s hope then that the incoming Government is quick off the mark in introducing fresh incentive, preferably the proposed Clean Car Initiative. Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of motorists throughout New Zealand who are doing their environmental bit by opting for vehicles with obvious clean credentials but which the bureaucrats won’t officially recognise: hybrids.