A dirty job meeting clean standard

Yesterday’s announcement of clean car actions raises potential for Kiwis having to reconsider allegiance to vehicles they love the most.

Diesel utes are No.1 with Kiwis …. but they’re not going to make the clean air cut.

 BASICALLY, we don't like our 'greens' and consume too many meaty products. 

That’s the national new vehicle buying pattern in a nutshell.

Sports utilities, crossovers and, in particular, one tonne utilities. These are the vehicles we love the most; to the point where they cumulatively outsell conventional cars and the Ford Ranger has become the country’s best-selling model.

Great stuff. Just one wee catch. It’s always been common knowledge that, were New Zealand ever to get its act together and implement some kind of emissions regulation, then the vehicles Kiwi love most would get us into trouble.

CO2 emissions from new passenger and light vehicles have been declining. However, our national average is well above where the Government has now decided it needs to be; mainly because we’ve been making too many dirty decisions. 

Core to announcement yesterday of a Clean Air Standard is intention to reach a CO2 target of 102g/km by 2025.

Easy-peasy? The current NZ average for cars and SUVs is 161g; overall, the fleet is around 171g – an improvement on a year ago, if only by 3g. And today’s average is still below is still slightly below the target the European Union set for its territory in 2003.

So, yeah, the challenge is to achieve a reduction of almost 40 percent from the current new-vehicle average. Utes, which are particular grubs, and vans must hit 132g in the same timeframe.

There’s no time to waste. The Government intends to pass the law this year and enact the standard in 2022, with the first charges being levied on any who miss their annually reducing targets from 2023. 

It’s not as if we didn’t know this day was coming. Fact is, NZ is just catching up to a world trend, which in a way is going to be helpful.

Vehicle makers are already being compelled the same targets in much larger, more crucial markets; their reaction to that challenge means they are already making products that are in step with the NZ intention. We will get many of those vehicles.

The European Union mandate on makers selling in its territory to meet an even higher standard, a fleet-wide average of 95g/km, and Japan’s mandate for a 104g/km standard, are especially compelling. Vehicles tailored to meet or exceed those expectations will also come here.

The NZ model is not too different from the EU’s. Vehicle suppliers will have different targets to meet, and will only have to ensure that the average efficiency of the cars imported in any given year meets the standard. This means higher-emission vehicles can still be imported but will have to be offset by cleaner vehicles.

Failure to comply will be penalised, as in the EU, but not to anything like the same extreme. In the EU, fines can be large enough to bring a brand to its knees. Here a penalty will be applied from 2023 of $50 per gram of CO2 above the target for new vehicle imports or $25 per gram above the target for used vehicle imports - but it is applied across the fleet.

If you decided, today, to investigate which vehicles on sale at this very moment were already meeting that new cut-off … well, the shortlist would be very short indeed.

even acknowledged thrift-meisters such as the top-selling Suzuki Swift are challenged to meet the 105g/km standard. The hybrid version, above, does with a count of 94g/km but conventionally-powered editions do not.

Forget conventional internal combustion-engined cars; even especially thrifty types struggle to be that clean.

You need to go hybrid, though even then it’s not a given. Toyota's Prius, Yaris, C-HR and Corolla petrol-electric models are all under the 105g/km. The Camry hybrid and the hot-selling RAV4 hybrid are on the wrong side of the fence.

The models that will make more of a difference are will be used by brands that can achieve them to lower their fleet averages are, of course, plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and fully electric vehicles.

This has been shown in the EU, where makers were generally starting from a base of 120g/km.

These are vehicles that, of course, many big players are now making in greater volumes. Ironically, some have been hard to secure for NZ because their makers are prioritising places where they have to represent electric fare or face fines – this is why VW Group product has been restricted, or completely held back, from NZ introduction. Europe’s biggest maker is focussing, out of necessity, on keeping those cars in EU markets. The NZ decision could well be a very useful tool for the brands’ NZ agent to now argue for prioritisation. 

In the here and now, the current hybrid and plug in hybrid fare that meets or improves on the standard comprise seven BMWs, two Hyundais, two Kias, a Range Rover, two Lexus models, four Mercedes, a MINI, a Mitsubishi, a Peugeot, two Porsches, six Toyotas and four Volvos.

In addition, 14 fully electric passenger models avail here, from Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kia, Mercedes, MG, MINI, Nissan, Renault and Tesla. One or two examples of the Volkswagen e-Golf might also be unspoken for, though car is not out of production and supply has ended.

The probability of seeing more electrics, PHEVs and hybrids is high – being, then, it already was anyway because, well, you might recall the motoring world is going that way regardless of how much you love your V8s.

Of course, not all brands have the luxury of being about to take the electric path. Subaru and Suzuki are barely in the game, with just mild hybrid options. No ute here yet has any kind of battery-assisted drivetrain, though a hybrid Toyota Hilux is promised and Mitsubishi has hinted at a battery-assisted powertrain for Triton. Look at Isuzu: It makes a ute and a spin-off SUV. Both rely purely on a diesel engine whose emissions are well about the new mandate.

plug-in hybrid and fully electric technology is an obvious solution to achieving or surpassing the new standard. Many brands are one step ahead … the PHEV Ford Transit is among models intended for NZ introduction.

What habits might we have to change or even quit? A year ago I wrote a backgrounder for a national publication that aimed to give insight into the vehicles that might well become problematic were our country to ever consider the CO2 issue.

That piece pointed out how our huge move toward ute ownership has been detrimental to bringing emissions down. It pointed out, for instance, that a the start of 2020, the Ford Ranger, which at that point had dominated ute sales for five years (and would do the same last year), was both a relative saint and a sinner, in that one engine it ran - the 2.2-litre four-cylinder biturbo, emitted a category best 177g/km - whereas the other, the five-cylinder 3.2-litre single turbo it launched with, evidenced a near class-worst 234.

America's big lugger RAM was also in the black. It’s XL-sized products delivered a 283.8g/km average outcome.

One solace for ute faithful now, as then, is that makes reserved for rich listers top the scale of shame. In the data used for last year’s story, Aston Martin achieved an average of 265.1 g/km, Bentley 274.7, Ferrari 279.8, Lamborghini 305.2 and McLaren 257.3. Rolls-Royce was the worst emitter, with an average of 343.3g/km.

Notwithstanding that some of those makes are now fast-tracking into an electric age, it’s probable more of those cars are going to come under the spotlight. Some might be withdrawn, others will asuuredly become even more expensive as penalties are passed on to the customer.

Market almost a quarter down on 2019

The new car market’s slump is becoming more pronounced.

DECLINING consumer interest, diminishing supply, a reflection of how a market looks when it isn’t being influenced by rental fleet demand? 

All have been cited by various sources within the motor industry as latest registrations data, the count for August, further supports a hefty drop in new vehicle registrations year-to-date compared to the same period last year.

“Year to date the market is down 23.8 percent, which is consistent with recent months data confirming our expectations that 2020 will finish about 25 percent down on 2019 volumes,” says David Crawford, chief executive of the Motor Industry Association, which represents new vehicle distributors.

His thought about why? Well, it all comes back to coronavirus, of course – the pandemic has slowed the vehicle industry and purchasing globally.

Specifically, Crawford ventures, it reflects a weaker economy affected by Covid-19. As for local influences? Well, the MIA hasn’t ventured that far, but others within the industry, speaking on condition of anonymity, have.

One says it’s pretty clear, now, that some brands are having trouble achieving supply of new products. Looking at more precise datasets than those shared by the MIA reveals a lot more, he suggests.

Another says the year to date decline reduces significantly when rental counts are excluded. “August can be a big month for rentals. Take them out and the decline is more like eight percent year-on-year, which isn’t so bad all things considered.”

Fair call? Well, when rentals are under the spotlight, really just one brand is affected more than any other, and that’s Toyota New Zealand. Interestingly enough, in a state of the national chat with motoring writers during last week’s MY21 Hilux event, TNZ CEO Neeraj Lala touched on the impact the collapse of the rental market had on his volume, noting that the rental count year to date in 2020 was about 90 percent down on the same period last year. 

In total, some 10,902 vehicles were registered last month, a decrease of 3623 units compared to September 2019.  

The top three plate-ups were the Ford Ranger (663 units) leading the Toyota RAV4 (464 units), and the Mitsubishi Triton (360 units).

The MIA also note a spike in electric vehicle registrations, due mainly to the Tesla Model 3; dissemination of the latest shipment of presumably pre-ordered cars accounted for 139 of the 243 fully electric vehicle registrations. Additionally, 54 plug-in hybrids and 927 hybrids – the latter mostly Toyotas - hit the road. 

Toyota was the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 16 percent market share (1,217 units) followed by Kia with 10 percent (801) and then Suzuki with 8 percent (625).

In the commercial sector, Ford retained the market lead with 25 percent market share (803 units) followed by Toyota with 13 percent (406) and Mitsubishi third with 11 percent (360).

D-Max joins utedom's business class

The new D-Max is weeks from launch, but pricing is out now. We knew those extras would have to add to the bottom line, but … gosh.

TECHNOLOGY enhancements surely set to elevate Isuzu’s D-Max’s status in ute-dom have also delivered with a hefty price rise.

Announcement today of the model range and prices for an eight-strong line-up reaching the showroom next month suggests the new derivatives will cost between $8000 to $10,000 more than their equivalents in the previous range when full retails are considered, and much more if comparison is made against the old models’ runout pricing.

The cheapest incoming model, a rear-drive LX, starts at $49,990 while the flagship, called the X-Terrain, is entering the market for $75,490.

The increases were always in the wind; they’ve hit in every market where the rig sells and reflect how much change has come to the model, through its makers – not just Isuzu this time, but also Mazda – seeming to determine it’s time to create a more direct rival for the sector’s big guns, Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux.

Yet the end cost of the effort necessitated to lift its game might nonetheless still come as a big shock to D-Max’s traditional customer base, which has been used to be spending much less.

It might also titillate Hilux and Ranger faithful, who will note that some D-Max models seem to be more expensive than comparable models in the Toyota and Ford lines.

The old D-Max at full retail was positioned between $39,890 and $61,990, but an aggressive clearance over the last few months has delivered those editions for substantially reduced stickers.

How the brand intends to argue the defence remains unknown. Isuzu Utes NZ general manager Sam Waller and public relations manager Kimberley Waters could not be reached for comment and the press information sent out today steered clear of directly addressing this issue.

The new line’s equipment provision was detailed by MotoringNZ on August 16 (https://www.motoringnz.com/news/2020/8/16/d-heading-for-a-plus?rq=d-max).

Our story then suggested that this model and the Mazda BT-50 that derives from it are set to deliver enough advanced safety and technology to reset market expectations.

That has been further reinforced by today’s release of information that confirms that every single model in the incoming range – including the three LX tradie versions that arrive in singe, space and double cab configurations, in manual and auto and two and four-wheel-drive formats –will deliver with an advanced safety package, including class-first advances of perimeter sensing technology and a centre airbag.

Other improvements to the entry derivatives include a seven inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, automatic lights and wipers and adaptive cruise control for automatic models.

The next level is the LS-M, which avails in double cab 4WD with automatic or manual transmissions. It adds to the LX provision by implementing LED head lights with LED daytime running lights, a plusher trim. It rides on 17 inch alloys.

The LS line above this goes to a nine inch touchscreen with satellite navigation, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, dual-zone climate air-conditioning, rear parking sensors. This edition runs on 18 inch alloys.

The top rung of the ladder is occupied by X-Terrain, which purely formats in an automatic double cab four-wheel-drive configuration.

In addition to the active safety technology of the other variants, it includes a powered driver seat, leather trim, a smart proximity key with remote engine start, front and rear parking sensors, wheel arch extensions and gun-metal exterior highlights (wheels, grille, mirror caps, door handles and roof rails) as well as a matte black roller tonneau cover and under-rail tray liner.

This D-Max is a co-production with Mazda, whose own BT-50 version is also coming to NZ this year, though release details have yet to be divulged.