As he told the Herald: “In feedback on the review, industry noted that the Standard is now well established in New Zealand, with importers accumulating credits and charges over time. Removing it at this stage would be highly disruptive for the vehicle industry. The Government has therefore decided to retain a standard and progress work to calibrate the settings so they are realistic and achievable for industry.”

• See why we were so opposed to the removal of the standard and what we think would speed things up here.

The demand for EVs is growing rapidly and sales data for June showed full EVs made up over 20% of all new car sales, an increase of over 150% on the same time last year.

“If we hope to meet our growing demand, we need to maintain the confidence of these manufacturers with stable policy settings. New Zealand is currently getting a good supply of electric vehicles, but we can’t take that for granted. Many of the brands are struggling to keep up with demand as it is. If supply is curtailed because our standards are weakened, that will be a wasted opportunity to reduce our reliance on expensive imported energy and help New Zealanders save over time.”

Some vehicle importers and legacy brands have raised the issue of ‘affordability’ to enable them to continue to import inefficient vehicles.

“It’s a false economy,” says Casey. “Their argument is that these inefficient vehicles cost less upfront, but they will cost New Zealanders much more over the vehicle’s lifetime. Instead of allowing old technology in, we should be working on ways to help more New Zealanders access newer technology and that often comes down to better finance schemes.”

‍

‍