A few surprises here, namely that PHEVs will pay a lower rate of RUCs, I was under the impression there would be a rebate scheme for petrol purchased.
No revisions to the weight brackets, which I imagine will be necessary before all vehicles eventually go to RUCs.
EVs absolutely need to pay RUC and contribute to roading in NZ, but the way they’ve implemented it is half baked and stupid (as expected).
For each 100km driven, a Toyota Prius pays $2.58 into the National Transport Fund via petrol excise tax (at 3.4 litres per 100km), and a Nissan Leaf will be paying $7.60 via Road User Charges.
Do we want to decarbonise the vehicle fleet or not? Because charging clean vehicles almost 3x what their fossil powered peers pay seems a strange way to go about it.
Either the Prius should be paying more, or the Leaf less to make this equitable.
This is precisely why the plan is to eventually go RUCs for all.
Although a Prius is a very clean vehicle itself, and encouraging people to use more efficient vehicles in general is a good thing.
One of the benefits of excise tax is it rewards lower polluting vehicles with fewer fees.
However they end up doing it (emissions tax, tiered RUC?), I hope this incentive remains. But considering that’d essentially be a ‘ute tax’ on running costs I can’t see this government doing it.