This is the title of an article in the NZ Herald published 3-5-2023- unfortunately pay walled (link below).
Prior to reading the Herald article I had written the following in a forthcoming NZ Sociology article on the climate change policies of the Green Party:
"The so-called Clean Car fees are substantial and can add up to $2875 to the cost of an imported used vehicle. Since low-income and lower-middle income earners are unlikely to be able to afford an EV, this funding model is regressive. If one adopts an intersectional perspective, in effect members of the blue collar working-class and/or Māori and/or Pasifika, are subsidising the purchase of EVs by relatively affluent Pākehā and tauiwi."
The Herald article confirms the highly socio-economically regressive effects of this neoliberal funding model.
For example, "Tesla owners have been the big winners of the Government’s clean car discount to date, with the buyers of 9730 Teslas getting a combined total of $83m in rebates from the scheme since it began in July 2021 - averaging about $8500 a car."
"Nine buyers of Alfa Romeos collected $12,257 in subsidies, three Jaguar buyers claimed $10,350, and a single Porsche buyer got $2300 for their Cayenne."
The main suburbs where buyers of EVS are located are either suburbs where the rich live, or suburbs where big companies domicile their vehicle fleets.
And which politician put in the official info request that the article is based on? Someone from the Greens? No. Simeon Brown from National supposedly concerned about the ute taxes being paid by farmers and tradies. Fair enough - but National will probably exempt them, while the predominately female, Māori, and Pasifika working class will continue to subsidize the purchase of flash cars by National and ACT supporters. The Greens support for the 'clean car levy' - in the absence of prior progressive tax reform and progressiveness in the configuration of the levies - is appalling.
Finally, no one in either Labour or the Greens seems prepared to acknowledge that the life-long carbon footprint of an EV is around 55-60% of an equivalent petrol powered vehicle. Once the maintenance of the roading network is factored then moving the entire national light vehicle fleet to EVs will only reduce overall emissions by around 30% - at best.
So what are some progressive changes that could make a real difference to reducing emissions? Use regulations - not socio-economically regressive levies - to discourage use of high emitting vehicles and the number of vehicles that can be owned per household. Among other things, there needs to be much more government investment in public and active transportation, clean green renewable energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, tidal, wave, and so forth), eco-housing, native afforestation to create long-term carbon sinks, and better waste management infrastructure.
Update on 30-10-2024
Perhaps predictably the Sixth National Government scrapped the scheme, even though many of its supporters will be disadvantaged for the reasons outlined above and at great length in my (2023) article on the Green Party's climate policies in New Zealand Sociology. I was mistaken to speculate that they would keep the scheme in a modified form, exempting farmers and small businesses, but keeping the flow of subsidies going to their supporters.
"“Scrapping the 'Ute Tax' as part of the National-ACT coalition
agreement was a priority in our 100-day plan, and we have delivered on
that commitment. The days of unfairly taxing our farmers and tradies are
now behind us,” Transport Minister Simeon Brown says."
Disappointingly, but also predictably the Green Party responded by defending the scheme. It's a pity they didn't take the opportunity to give it a rethink and come up with a scheme that is socio-economically progressive, for example, by coming up with a scale of fees and discounts that takes income into account.
