EV rebate: the winners and losers

Monday, 14 June 2021

The Clean Car Discount scheme was unveiled by Transport Minister Michael Wood and Climate Change Minister James Shaw on June 13. (First published June 2021)

The recently-announced Clean Car Discount rebate scheme hopes to speed up the uptake of electric and low-emission vehicles (LEVs) in New Zealand’s new car fleet, in turn speeding up the downward filtering of EVs and LEVs into the used car pool.

While the rebates on EVs and PHEVs start on the 1st of next month, the fees on high-emitters don’t kick in until January 2022, while on the same date the rebate scheme will expand to include low-emission ICE vehicles (which will mainly be hybrids).

As with all schemes like this, there are going to be winners and losers as we attempt to realign our love-affair with cars to a cleaner future. Here we take a look at who will win and who will lose – at least in the short term – in the new car market.

Brace yourself – come the start of next year, your new Ranger will be more expensive.

THE LOSERS

Ford

When two of your most popular vehicles are a diesel ute and a V8 sports car, you are definitely a loser come January 2022 under the Government’s scheme.

* National: EV scheme 'takes from the poor to give to the rich'

* Kiwis will pay $3000 penalty for polluting utes under new policy, AA says

Possibly not the best time for Toyota to be launching the large diesel Land Cruiser 300 Series. But the extra fees won’t put buyers off.

* These are the most popular electric and electrified vehicles in NZ

While it is no fault of Ford NZ, all of the Blue Oval’s big electric headliners are either not destined for our market (F-150 Lightning), currently obscured by a thick cloud of uncertainty and tight-lipped deniability from HQ in Dearborn (Mustang Mach-E, the future VW-based EV product) or delayed (Escape PHEV).

Still, the Escape will get here eventually, as will the all-electric Transit van, but we wouldn’t expect the latter to qualify for a rebate as the Transit Custom PHEV lands here at a hefty $99,900 anyway…

Toyota (for now)

Poor Toyota NZ – while it has actually reduced its average emissions by a massive amount thanks to its wholesale approach to hybrids, it will miss out on the initial full-fat of the rebate scheme due to its lack of fully-electric or plug-in hybrid options in its line up. Plus, Hilux…

In fact the only vehicle in Toyota’s current line up that will qualify for the discount will be the Prius Prime PHEV that doesn’t exactly set the sales charts alight.

That won’t last, however, as the company will be introducing 16 new electrified vehicles over the next five years, including at least six zero-emission products, including the Lexus UX300e EV due this year.

Isuzu’s range is exclusively diesel utes and one ute-based SUV. There’s no good news for them.

Also, it’s not a particularly good look to be launching a massive turbo diesel V6 ladder chassis SUV right at the same time the scheme was announced, but hopefully it also means that the fantastic 225kW RAV4 Prime PHEV might become a bit more attractive to TNZ now.

Come the 1st of January next year, however, Toyota is looking good for that rebate on low-emission cars, with almost its entire range offering a hybrid option.

Suzuki

Not so much a loser; more just Suzuki deserves a better deal. After all, it already has the lowest average emissions of any new car distributor in New Zealand, and it only faces being penalised when the emission targets kick in (every manufacturer is expected to reduce their emissions, so Suzuki faces being penalised because it can’t get much lower!) – and it gets nothing out of the rebate scheme yet because it doesn’t have any EV or PHEV models available to it at this stage.

Still, at least things should get a bit better when the scheme expands in January to include low-emission cars.

Isuzu

Having an exclusively diesel ute and SUV line up doesn’t exactly do you any favours under the new scheme and Isuzu is facing price hikes only when it comes into force.

Tradies and farmers will be stung by the scheme, but it might put off a few urban ute buyers.

This also awkwardly comes after the company bumped its prices up quite a bit with the launch of the all-new D-Max ute, hoping to slip upwards into the space vacated by its previous twin-under-the-skin (and quite a bit of the skin too) Holden Colorado, rather than being the cheaper option.

This misstep was exacerbated by its current twin-under-the-skin platform mate, the Mazda BT-50, landing here considerably cheaper than the D-Max.

Jeep

MG Motor wins big under the scheme, with its already cheap ZS EV almost making it under $40k with the rebate.

Again, that large ladder chassis SUV/ute thing bites Jeep hard and while it does have a number of lower-emitting models in its range, none of them sell enough to make any difference.

Pretty much all of Jeep’s bestsellers in New Zealand will face price jumps under the scheme, and there is currently no sign that overseas electrification (PHEV versions of the small Renegade, medium Compass and large Wrangler) will ever make it here.

Ute buyers

Yep, come the start of next year your diesel ute will go up in price.

While this will bite with those who actually need a ute – tradies, farmers, etc – the actual price increase amortised across the useful work life of the vehicle is pretty minimal, so won’t likely affect buying patterns there much.

Tesla only gets one model under the $80k cutoff, but the Model 3 Standard Range Plus is now an utter bargain because of it.

But where it might make some impact will be in the lifestyle arena, where city-slickers buying utes to drive around town in will get stung. Will this make them rethink their purchase? Probably not, after all a high-spec double cab ute costs north of $70k these days, so what’s a few grand extra to look like you might go off-road one day. Maybe. If the weather is right, and you feel like it…

THE WINNERS

MG Motor

MG already had the cheapest new EV in the country with the ZS EV, which offered a compelling package for less than $50k, but it now represents ridiculously good value for money at closer to $40k ($40,365 to be precise).

The plug-in hybrid rebate also sees the MG HS PHEV drop to $47,240, which also represents deeply impressive value for money and actually undercuts every model of the Toyota RAV4 hybrid, apart from the basic entry level model. People were already buying the ZS EV in healthy (for the EV segment) numbers, this will only sell more of them…

Peugeot

The long-awaited 208 and 2008 EVs are due very shortly, and they will almost certainly be comfortably priced under the cutoff for the scheme, meaning that Peugeot will be in the box seat to take advantage of it.

While Peugeot’s current PHEV – the 3008 – doesn’t make it under the $80k cutoff, the discount on the EVs should generate decent interest – hopefully particularly in the 208, which is an absolutely brilliant thing to drive and deserves to do well simply because of that.

Low in price, but high in quality – utes like the GWM Cannon could attract more buyers because of the scheme.

Tesla

Already a fan-favourite, Tesla’s Model 3 only has a single model in its range that skates under the cutoff, but lopping an extra $8k off the Standard Range Plus Model 3’s already sharp price makes it an absolute bargain.

The Model 3 is already the strongest selling new EV in New Zealand and the discount will make it almost irresistible.

Hyundai

The sheer number of models that Hyundai has eligible for the rebate places it in a great position to take advantage of it.

While some of its top-spec models are looking a bit pricey these days – particularly against the likes of the Tesla Model 3 – they still offer levels of build quality a notch above, while the brilliant forthcoming Ioniq 5 takes things even further and, if Hyundai can wriggle it in at a good price, could well be a big hit with the discount applied.

Kia

Everything we wrote about Hyundai applies to Kia, with the fast-approaching launch of its striking EV6 poised to potentially take advantage of the rebate scheme.

Although, by how much is an unknown at this stage as local pricing hasn’t been revealed. We wouldn’t expect the hot top-spec/performance version to be anywhere near the cutoff, but we can dream…

LDV, SsangYong, GWM

Yes, that’s right, there are some purveyors of diesel utes that could win out of this – namely those at the lower end of the price spectrum.

LDV, SsangYong and GWM (formerly Great Wall) all dabble at the lower end of the price spectrum, but with impressive value-for-money offerings that are starting to rival the big players for quality. Sure, they will attract a price penalty under the scheme, but they will still be considerably cheaper, potentially driving a few prospective Hilux and Ranger buyers their way instead…

On-the-fence EV/PHEV buyers

If you’ve been hanging back thinking about making the jump, then the announcement will be music to your ears.

If range anxiety is what has been holding you back, then this won’t change that, but if price was, this could well be the decider, particularly as there are now some relative bargains, mainly with the two best-selling EVs in the country – the MG ZS EV and Tesla Model 3 – now both being extremely good value for money.

And here’s the other thing: there are quite a few EVs and PHEVs close to the $80k cutoff, so you can be certain there will be a lot of frantic renegotiation with head office going on at a number of distributors as they scramble to get them eligible for the rebate too.

The environment

No kidding.