Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: It wasn't a mistake to cancel the EV subsidy

The Government is copping heat today for cancelling the EV subsidy a couple of years ago. Critics now say it looks like a mistake, because oil prices are rising and, as a result, petrol prices are rising too.

They argue that, of course, we’d all be better off in electric vehicles - which we supposedly would have been if the Government hadn’t cancelled the subsidy at the end of 2023.

Now let me tell you why it was not a mistake to cancel it, why what’s happening right now actually proves that, and why the lovies saying this are wrong.

What’s important in this argument is being specific about who would have owned those electric vehicles if the Tesla subsidy had continued.

It wouldn’t have been workers living all the way out in Pōkeno, driving into the city, it wouldn’t have been people out in Silverstream commuting into Wellington, it wouldn’t have been solo mums trying to make ends meet - they can’t afford new EVs.

It would have been well-heeled people living in central-city leafy suburbs, getting eight grand knocked off the price of their nice new cars. Those are not the people who need help when fuel prices shoot up.

So if we were going to do something like this - if we were going to repeat some form of Government help - wouldn’t it be far more useful to take the $620 million that helped nice people into their nice cars and instead redirect it toward people who are poorer?

The proof that we didn’t need that subsidy up to this point is in what’s happening right now. I told you earlier: BYD sold 80 cars in New Zealand on Saturday alone. They sold 800 cars in Australia on the same day. That is happening in New Zealand without the subsidy.

Which tells you this - when rich people decide they want themselves a nice EV, they will go and buy it without Government help. They don’t need it.

They just have to want EVs - and they didn’t want them before because it didn’t stack up until fuel prices went up.

Now look, I do think there’s a place for Government help in this crisis if it gets worse. But it’s not to help rich people buy new cars.

It’s for poorer people - the people who will actually be stung by rising petrol prices if they keep going up. So no, it was not a mistake to cut the subsidy.

Eighty BYDs sold in New Zealand on Saturday is your proof.

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