Ok, so the government wants to invest in electric vehicles because it makes them look like responsible climate warriors. Ignoring the right or wrong of it, we can still ask the practical question - how would an electric transport New Zealand look, in practice?
Well, electric cars are still rather costly in terms of capital demands, so the system we develop would need to be as economical as possible to induce uptake - without a severe public backlash.
It makes sense then for most electric cars to be very small, like my favourite example, the Twizy. You would use your small commuter car for most trips, and you would use a traditional car only for when you specifically need it.
That would make an electric future affordable. Just cut the basic cost of the most commonly used cars by two-thirds, by investing in mainly single-person vehicles to match real demand.
Range extenders:
But there's the range problem. The best way to solve this is with petrol-electric generators (range extenders) that can hook onto the back of your car when needed for those long trips. 95% of the time you won't need the range extender, so it makes sense not to buy it - just hire it from a service station.
The French have already mastered practical range-extenders to this end. A range extender mounted within a small trailer that actively steers itself while reversing, so anyone can back it without the headache. Goodbye range anxiety?
Range-extenders also get around the problem of needing tens of thousands of charging ports to support cars that 'fill up' in 2 hours, not 2 minutes.
Yes, range-extenders mean you're still burning carbon - but only a little. The fuel-burn can be offset via a modest amount of tree planting for decades to come. They make perfect sense as a bridging solution, until someone finally invents the miracle battery.
Charging:
Almost all from-the-grid charging will be done overnight, when electrical demand is (otherwise) low. That would be as essential as the range-extenders. A simple timing device would of course make this easy.
Large vehicles:
Larger vehicles, if they must be electric, will usually be hired. A well expanded Mevo-type network could do the job well (I write more on this, here).
What about trucks and special vehicles? They can go electric with add-on range-extenders too, but no doubt over a longer period of time.
Driverless electric:
There's also the possibility of going driverless with electric cars. I argue that robotaxi's are most likely being held back by powerful players, and for understandable reasons. (I talk on this, here). For now, we should assume that politicians and their backers will continue to force us to buy new cars and pay a fortune for parking (sadly).
The advantage of going electric:
A massive reduction in noise pollution, both inside and outside of vehicles. That would be wonderful. Great for the lungs too, of course.
Don't ask me about the environmental gain, because climate alarmism has long been a political creation driving a scientific conclusion...
We know that more CO2 in the atmosphere has led to a much greener earth, because higher CO2 concentrations make plants more drought resistant. Btw, sea levels have gone almost nowhere and the scary climate models are still all empirically wrong. Doomsday was supposed to be here twenty years ago. I'm still waiting.
The emissions trading scheme:
New Zealand's emissions trading scheme covers land transport, and it wisely employs an emissions cap. In short, this means that the amount of carbon that can be burnt in land transport is rigidly set, no matter what else we might do...
So, in practice, as the demand for fuel-burn goes up, so does the cost of the credits that permits us to burn it, because there are only a limited number of available carbon credits that permit us to burn fuel - and the market has to compete for them. Hence, as the price goes up, people then mitigate their [then costly] carbon consumption by using their vehicles less, or more efficiently, or running a smaller car, car-pooling, buying an electric car...or whatever.
So, what does the governments special investment in electric vehicles do for emissions reduction, considering we already have an emission trading scheme that caps our consumption to a rigidly set point, regardless? Absolutely nothing, is the answer.
-Again to be clear: If you reduce the fuel-burn of cars by making them largely electric, the price of carbon-credits will then go down, so the permitted fuel-burn will then be taken up by trucks, buses, or whatever.
So why is the government picking favourites for emissions mitigation, with electric cars? Because most people don't (and won't) understand the emissions trading scheme, so subsiding electric vehicles makes the government look good. It's a 'virtue' investment. Perception is politics.
What's more, if reducing CO2 emissions is as simple as employing a capped emissions trading scheme, like we already do, then the Climate Change Commission will be out of a job. The CCC are currently paid very well to break what never should have been broken.
The hard truth is, the New Zealand government is abusing public concern about carbon emissions to the end of controlling the development of the nation. Emissions reduction is the excuse - not the reason. That's another story altogether and I write on that, here.
Oh, and here is the right way to reduce emission (if you must):
Extended: note on the politics:
Personally, I would love it if most cars were electric. I do a lot of walking and I value the peace. But noise pollution is none of the Climate Change Commissions business. It has nothing to do with reducing CO2 in itself. Reducing noise is a decision for New Zealand - not the CCC.
If New Zealand wanted electric cars and buses for the sake of the quiet, then they could choose to apply a tax on vehicles based on how much noise they make, how toxic the noise is, and where and when the vehicle is driven, etc. A simple GPS-tracking device could sort this out, efficiently. For example, making it costly to run a diesel bus up a residential street at 5.30 in the morning would quickly drive demand for electric buses, or buses with extensive noise suppressors. Again - these kinds of controls belong to another department, not the CCC.
This should be obvious. So what's going on? Why have we created the CCC when all we ever needed was an emission trading scheme, with a progressively tightening cap over time?
It looks to me that the government has created a department that can recommended policy most likely inherited from the United Nations, though in a way that makes their policy not look like it's designed to reach non-CO2 reduction ends.
The CCC works as a protective barrier between our politicians and public scrutiny. All the government has to say now is..."Oh, but that's what the CCC recommended and they're the experts"...even as we find ourselves being driven into some kind of modern socialism, or other.
Again, reducing emissions seems to be the excuse, not the purpose.
Going all-electric in transport may only be the beginning of what the CCC will recommend. Don't be surprised if you find yourself living in a super costly high-density city, whether you want it or not. And it could all be done via dodgy logic and, of course, in the name of fighting climate change.
