Kirstin Corson: Drive Electric CEO on the changes to the clean car standards

An EV advocacy group isn’t in favour of the changes to the clean car standards. 

Transport Minister Simeon Brown's announced he's scaling back the previous Government's emissions standards, which charged importers for higher emitting vehicles. 

Pollution targets for imported vehicles have been reduced, loosening penalties for importers of dirty cars. 

Drive Electric Chair Kirstin Corson told Ryan Bridge that we’re heading in the wrong direction. 

She said that although the legislation is set to align with Australia, it actually doesn’t. 

Corson said that Australia’s penalties are a lot tougher than New Zealand’s, and they also have federal and state incentives in every state, so it’s much more appealing to go EV there. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talk sai'd be, I don't mind a g string at
a swimming pool personally. We'll talk about that later on
Right now though, for your ute, the Clean Car Importer
standards are set to be lowered to align with Australia's
emission standards. The adjustments will see a softening of the
CO two targets for commercial vehicles, including utes. The Clean
Car standard penalties as they stand would see people paying

(00:21):
an extra five and a half thousand dollars when purchasing
certain types of vehicles by twenty twenty seven, so that
money could be saved. Kirsten Coulson is the chair of
Drive Electric and is with me this morning. A Kirston,
good morning to you. I won't ask about the g
strings at the pools, but we will ask about the utes.
Is this heading in the right direction or the wrong direction?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Look, that's heading in the wrong direction. It's really clear
already from the data that the emission standards of our
vehicles in New Zealand have increased in twenty three So
we're heading in the wrong direction completely.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Why should we be doing any better than Australia.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, this legislation is set to align with Australia but
actually it doesn't. Australia have got penalties that are a
lot tougher in New Zealand, and Australia also has federal
and state incentives at in every state in Australia, so
it's much more appealing to go ev in Australia than

(01:21):
it is in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
What's their uptake? Because we're what two percent of athlete
are we still all?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
We're two percent? And if you look at last year,
we were sitting at around twenty seven percent of new
cow sales we're electric, and this year we've gone down
to eight percent. If we look I guess at our
really big trading partners where we've got fair trade agreements,
China is looking at forty five percent new cow sales

(01:49):
are electric, Europe's looking at twenty five percent, and the
US is looking at eleven percent. So you know, we've
got trading agreements where we've got a commitment to decabine
and those partners are decalbinizing. But clearly we're not at
the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Okay, So you would like to see this, You would
like to see the government basically reverse this. You want
to see I mean, the Ford range is still is
that still a most popular vehicle sold vehicle it was
for a few years. They're running kiwis obviously like buying them,
and there's a cost of living crisis. So isn't there
a you know, isn't there an argument to take the

(02:26):
the accelerator accelerator a little bit?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Look, if the government was truly serious about saving kiwi's money,
they would be supporting them to get into EV's And
the reason being that, Ryan, if you charged your EV
at home overnight, off peak, you'd be paying around two
dollars per one hundred kilometers. If you're paying for petrol
on a six point nine liter vehicle, you're paying around

(02:49):
twenty dollars per one hundred kilometers. So absolutely, there is
the cost of living crisis.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
The road user charge will change, will take care of that,
won't it?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
User charges We're still paying twenty three percent more than
a petrol vehicle and EV but still over a total
cost of ownership model evs are still substantially cheaper.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
All right, we will leave it there, Kirston, thank you
very much for your time. Kirsten Couson, the chair of
Drive Electric, responding to news there that the clean car
and Porter standards are set to be lowered. They will
be aligned with Australia, though as Kirsten has pointed out,
there are other differences in that equation too. For more
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(03:32):
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