I’m curious to know what others think of this.
I’m personally for keeping it as I see the benefit coming in a few years having many more EV’s available in the second hand market. Currently it’s pretty much dominated by mainly Nissan Leaf’s at the lower end of the secondhand market.
I know of a few people as well who have bought EV/Hybrids recently that would not have even considered going for EV’s or even hybrids without the rebate.
I think I get where you are coming from, but what are the alternatives? Most alternatives like electric public transport that allows commuters to travel into cities to work requires that intergenerational investment that, in NZ, just doesn’t seem to happen. Or are you suggesting working from home (which some jobs can’t do), or just a much simpler life in general (I’m pretty much there now). Or perhaps where consumerism ends, international trade ends, international travel ends etc., tourists disappear etc. I’m all in, but it simply is not going to happen until the water level rises, the temperature reaches extremes and the effects are actually felt by people first hand. It is the nature of humans, unfortunately?
Alternatives aside for the moment, what we currently have seems to be populist governments dishing out subsidies to private vehicle owners (free roads, free parking, free money for EVs). It seems to work in terms of getting elected. Yet it incentivises people to live far away from their places of interest - work, school, family and friends, and drive everywhere to make up for that.
Maybe a combination of tech will allow us to properly price things like traffic, parking, resource use. Then we may find that suburbia is less sensible economically, or that more living and working is moved out to where people are housed.
Yes, a simpler life in general. Less powerful, more connected.
Looking at what EV’s have been popular in China over the last couple of years:
2-3 years ago the most popular EV was the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV:
This year it’s the BYD Song Plus:
The Wuling is still in the top five, but so are Tesla. Seems like SUV’s are what people want - how could you change peoples minds? Perhaps offer larger rebates on smaller EV’s? Or, tax luxury (SUV) EV’s? Have to get rid of those oil burners first though!?
You are right, it’s what people want.
The way to incentivise smaller vehicles (and less private vehicle travel generally) is through RUC and congestion charges. If we paid for road usage based on weight/footprint the demand for bigger cars wouldn’t be so high.
If we had price rationing at peak times (commute, school run etc.) then people would be incentivised to pool, use alternatives, etc.
The emissions from building more roads and parking spaces is non-trivial too.
