Petition to reduce EV RUCs

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#3201996 1-Mar-2024 13:40

empacher48:

Scott3:

Can't speak for others, but I paid around $12k for my EV. The RUC exemption was a material factor in my running costs model.

I don't have an issue paying my fair share. But I feel paying the same road tax as an aqua or fielder hybrid would be fair. As the proposal stands I will be paying more than double. The difference is so dramatic, it means a small toyota hybrid will replace the leaf as most economical option for commuters etc.

On weight, the damage done by all light vehicles to the roads is negligible, so it is not a relevant factor

Something that no EV owner has been able to answer for me.

If the RUC rate was reduced to $35/1000km, you would be happy with ALL VEHICLES in that weight band to pay the same? So a Ford Ranger pays that?

Because if they shouldn’t because it’s a polluting Ute, then really shouldn’t we have emissions taxes on the fuel and not have multiple RUC rates depending on what powers the vehicle?

In short yes.

Both an EV and a diesel ford ranger do negligible road damage, and occupy about the same space on the road (noting that the vast majority of space occupied is following distance, so a ranger being 1m longer than a leaf is immaterial), so it would be fair for them to pay the same.

The underlying issue here is that efficient petrol cars get a crazy good deal under the post march 31 system, which creates a market distortion in favor of Toyota hybrids and the likes, at the expense of EV's. It is that market distortion that needs solving.

We do have emissions taxes on fuel already.

johno1234

2793 posts

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#3201999 1-Mar-2024 13:47

Aren’t hybrids to pay a lower RUC rate to account for the petrol tax they are paying?

empacher48

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#3202008 1-Mar-2024 13:59

Scott3:
In short yes.

Both an EV and a diesel ford ranger do negligible road damage, and occupy about the same space on the road (noting that the vast majority of space occupied is following distance, so a ranger being 1m longer than a leaf is immaterial), so it would be fair for them to pay the same.

The underlying issue here is that efficient petrol cars get a crazy good deal under the post march 31 system, which creates a market distortion in favor of Toyota hybrids and the likes, at the expense of EV's. It is that market distortion that needs solving.

We do have emissions taxes on fuel already.

But that market distortion has always been there and up until the 1st April has been for those buying EVs and PHEVs. Many years ago it meant that very light diesels were disadvantaged.

But this current distortion is only going to be in place when we are paying for our roading using two different methods. When it swaps to a single method, the distortion will disappear. The uncertainty at the moment is when that will occur, but when it does then EVs will become the cheaper vehicle again.

Many years ago, someone mentioned that purchasing a hybrid was a step in the direction towards going full EV. With the current distortion towards mild hybrids is still a step in the right direction, people thinking twice against full ICE v hybrid, the chances as the purchase after that will end being PHEV or even EV.

Scott3

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#3202010 1-Mar-2024 14:00

Senecio:

Scott3:

As an EV owner, I am fine with paying road tax, just think that paying ~2.4x the road tax of a Yaris hybrid is a bit inequitable.

Road user charges have always been inequitable, why the public outcry now? Oh, it didn’t impact you before. Now I understand.

Yip, it was inequitable 20 years also (and I was opposed to that then too). NZ taxing diesel's via km & petrol's by the liter, absolutely killed the viability of small ultra-efficient diesel car's that were booming in Europe at the time (i.e. vw polo BlueMotion).

With hindsight, this was a bit of a blessing (Europe found out fairly soon after that while diesel cars are great for reduced co2 emissions, in the real work, having a heap of them is bad for urban air quality & hence human health), but this was by luck not design.

As to why there is outcry now:

It's a change, hence newsworthy, and legislation will soon be going through parliament, so now is the best opportunity to effecting change (even if the odds seem poor).
This change clearly creates a perverse incentive to buy efficient petrol cars instead of electric cars (which is the opposite of what we need to decarbonise our country)
Cars like the Prius came to market around the same time as the European diesel car boom so there was an alternative route to low emissions motoring.
As petrol cars have got more efficient over time, the road tax differential between a RUC car and an efficient petrol car has grown.
Environmental concern is growing over time

I must say it is a bit gritting when you get an email from the government, saying that EV's RUC's are being introduced so I pay my fair share, yet the rate is such that I will be paying more than double that of a Toyota aqua.

Scott3

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#3202013 1-Mar-2024 14:02

johno1234: Aren’t hybrids to pay a lower RUC rate to account for the petrol tax they are paying?

That's PHEV's (Plug in hybrid electric vehicles) and its $53/1000km.

It has it's own issues. It is a sweet deal for PHEV's like the BMW i3 REX, which has the range to drive mostly on petrol (but still not as good of a deal as a yairs hybrid), and a terrible deal for old misti outlanders with only 15km of electric range left in the battery that end up running on petrol most of the time.

Scott3

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#3202015 1-Mar-2024 14:15

empacher48:

But that market distortion has always been there and up until the 1st April has been for those buying EVs and PHEVs. Many years ago it meant that very light diesels were disadvantaged.

But this current distortion is only going to be in place when we are paying for our roading using two different methods. When it swaps to a single method, the distortion will disappear. The uncertainty at the moment is when that will occur, but when it does then EVs will become the cheaper vehicle again.

Many years ago, someone mentioned that purchasing a hybrid was a step in the direction towards going full EV. With the current distortion towards mild hybrids is still a step in the right direction, people thinking twice against full ICE v hybrid, the chances as the purchase after that will end being PHEV or even EV.

Yes, the distortion in favor of EV's & PHEV (until 1 april) was deliberate, to encourage uptake. I discussed small diesel's being disadvantaged historically in a prior comment.

I don't think going from EV's being favored to not favored, and then to even treatment (which will mean cheaper running costs) is acceptable. It means we are forgoing a significant amount of EV market share growth for however long it is until RUC's are rolled out to all vehicles. Also it causes issues for our auto importing industry. VW has recently decided to no longer offer the ID.4 model here, and has slashed the price by $20k to dump their remaining stock. We want stable policy which encourages a good range of EV's to be on the NZ market, and encourages private investment into stuff like EV charging stations.

I love hybrids, and are happy to see them boom, but do feel as a country (especially given our highly renewable electricity grid, and how all our petrol / diesel is imported), should be incentivizing (or at leas not disincentivizing) plug in vehicles relative to them.

Dingbatt

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#3202112 1-Mar-2024 15:55

SaltyNZ:

I think I've been clear all along: my preference, and what I submitted to NZTA, and you seemed to agree with at the time, is for all vehicles to pay equally for their road use under the RUC scheme.

If that is not the case, then RUCs need to be geared to achieve the desired outcome - favouring zero-emission vehicles.

To be clear, I do agree completely with the assertion that all vehicles should pay the same to use the road. No special deals, no “Driving For Families” packages.

The “desired outcome” is surely to have safe, well maintained roads? It just appeared within the space of two posts that you said you thought RUCs shouldn’t be used to punish “polluters”, then wanted special treatment for not ~~polluting~~ emitting.

Once again this is old and repeated echoes from the RUC thread.

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#3202118 1-Mar-2024 16:00

Dingbatt:

To be clear, I do agree completely with the assertion that all vehicles should pay the same to use the road.

Good, that's my first preference too.

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wellygary

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#3202131 1-Mar-2024 16:43

Scott3:

It has it's own issues. It is a sweet deal for PHEV's like the BMW i3 REX, which has the range to drive mostly on petrol (but still not as good of a deal as a yairs hybrid), and a terrible deal for old misti outlanders with only 15km of electric range left in the battery that end up running on petrol most of the time.

Wait and see,

Range extenders like some i3s are not classed with regular PHEVs , There are separate "range extender" classes in the Registry

We haven't seen if they will be treated as PHEVS or EVs yet....
(the tabling of the legislation next week will confirm which way the cookie will crumble for them

11 Plug-in petrol hybrid
Propelled by either a petrol or diesel motor and electric motor. The batteries can be externally charged.
12 Plug-in diesel hybrid

13 Electric – petrol extended
Propelled by an electric motor where the battery is charged from an onboard petrol or diesel generator and an external source of electricity

14 Electric – diesel extended

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/how-the-motor-vehicle-register-affects-you/engine-definition-changes-from-1-july-2017/

Scott3

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#3202257 2-Mar-2024 00:06

wellygary:

Scott3:

It has it's own issues. It is a sweet deal for PHEV's like the BMW i3 REX, which has the range to drive mostly on petrol (but still not as good of a deal as a yairs hybrid), and a terrible deal for old misti outlanders with only 15km of electric range left in the battery that end up running on petrol most of the time.

Wait and see,

Range extenders like some i3s are not classed with regular PHEVs , There are separate "range extender" classes in the Registry

We haven't seen if they will be treated as PHEVS or EVs yet....
(the tabling of the legislation next week will confirm which way the cookie will crumble for them

11 Plug-in petrol hybrid
Propelled by either a petrol or diesel motor and electric motor. The batteries can be externally charged.
12 Plug-in diesel hybrid

13 Electric – petrol extended
Propelled by an electric motor where the battery is charged from an onboard petrol or diesel generator and an external source of electricity

14 Electric – diesel extended

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/vehicles/how-the-motor-vehicle-register-affects-you/engine-definition-changes-from-1-july-2017/

Interesting, I hadn't realized we had differing engine definitions between Plug in hybrid and "Electric - petrol extended".

"Range extended electric vehicle" is a marketing term popularised by GM for the Holden (Chevy) Volt. Amusingly that car would fit in the the plug in hybrid category as under high speed, hybrid mode cruising, the engine is mechanically linked to the wheels. A detail it is unlikely the layperson would be aware of.

That said, I think it is a fair bet the i3 REX will get the $53/1000km rate.

SaltyNZ

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#3202264 2-Mar-2024 06:31

Just another reason why my original submission to NZTA was to have all vehicles paying RUC. Then it doesn't matter how the car works anymore.

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rugrat

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#3202355 2-Mar-2024 12:09

SaltyNZ:

Just another reason why my original submission to NZTA was to have all vehicles paying RUC. Then it doesn't matter how the car works anymore.

They probably don’t have the staff, or infrastructure in place to do it on that scale at present.

Also with the admin fee it will be politically unpopular. Unpopular with electric owners at present, though amount of people effected are small percentage of population.

If want immediate fairness without reducing road tax take maybe a combination of reducing RUC and increasing excise tax on petrol, as I agree that electric will be paying higher road tax then efficient petrol. Though inefficient cars will then get stung depending how much excise tax goes up.

When they do roll to all cars, hopefully they can make tax collection more efficient so not costing around $12 a transaction.

jonathan18

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#3202368 2-Mar-2024 12:40

networkn: As for your comment on weight, it most certainly isn't irrelevant. A LOT of EV's are well over 2 tonnes. With a significant number of EV's on the road and ever increasing due to these 'incentives' it will absolutely have a material impact over time.

I used to think that (back when I had a diesel well under 2T and found paying the same RUCs as a small truck a bit weird), but as I understand it the level of road damage caused by any vehicle in that bottom RUC category (two axles, up to 3.5T) is not that dissimilar. Therefore I think ‘road damage caused by EVs’ is not nearly as significant as you claim. I imagine some here may be able to point to evidence of this if you’re still sceptical…

It would also be interesting to see if the average passenger vehicle weight in NZ has gone up or down over the last 20 years - while lighter-weight materials may increasingly be used, at the same time cars are getting literally weighed down with additional bells and whistles, let alone the increasing popularity of larger vehicles (eg SUVs and utes).

703

131 posts

Master Geek

#3202582 3-Mar-2024 08:34

$8000 subsidy provided by the govt pays for a lot of RUC for many years.

As for new EVs still so much cheaper in running costs compared to Petrol.

sidefx

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#3202586 3-Mar-2024 09:07

I also signed because I believe the new rates are too high (I don't own an EV) - but I also think the proposed $35 in the petition is a bit too low - it should be somewhere in the middle.

Scott3:

I have signed it, but do have some criticisms:

Weight limit is on empty weight. Convention for RUC's is done by fully laden weight (Gross vehicle mass / GVM)
Weight for light vehicles is immaterial, they all do negligible road damage, so RUC is really just paying for space, not damage. As such, might as well keep it at 3500kg for consistency with existing weight bands.
Road tax is equivalency is calculated off 5.0L/100km. Class leading petrol hybrids beat this by a long way. Yaris hybrid per the toyota NZ website is rated at 3.0 L/100km (3P-WLTP)*.
Even if the admin fees seem excessive, it is not really fair to get general taxation to pick this up.

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