Motor Industry Association (MIA) CEO David Crawford says late changes to mechanisms of the Clean Car Discount’s latest wave of updates were “frustrating” for the industry.
The latest round of Clean Car regulations came into effect on April 1. However, distributors and dealers had barely a few weeks’ notice to update fuel economy labels on their inventory. This followed delays from the Ministry of Transport that only saw exact rebate and fee amounts being confirmed in early March.
“Our gripe is that officials took all the time they needed ahead of the deadline to get their bit right, and then they just thought we could flip a switch,” Crawford says.
“The business processes we have to put in place to get these changes implemented without breaking laws requires a couple of months of prep. And we didn’t get that.”
Crawford says that the process of updating vehicle information at a new-vehicle level requires numerous steps of data entry and processing. Raw model details go into the MIA Model Information (MIAMI) system, which is then sent to the Motor Vehicle Register. That then goes to RightCar.
The bigger issue, though, was the scramble to print replacement for economy labels. All new stock had to have new labels implemented by April 1, with existing stock given a slightly more generous grace period of until April 15.
Crawford says it’s just the latest example of political process underestimating how long it takes for the local industry to be able to implement change, be it regarding the introduction of new labels or be it the ability to secure supply of new low-emission models.
“It’s just trying to get the flow from the officials to the minister to understand that if they don’t tie down the final policy decisions for getting regulations in place in time, then that places an unfair burden on industry to then get our house in order in time,” he says.
“That message was just lost in a dark black hole.”
He believes the next stumbling block that’s set to cause similar nightmares is the Ministry of Transport’s hesitation behind confirming its final tare-weight coefficient figures that it will use to adjust emissions targets for certain vehicles in the future.
“We know what that tare-weight alpha coefficient is, but it’s not yet confirmed and it won’t be confirmed until the regulations are in place,” Crawford adds.
“We’re not expecting to see regulations until the middle of the year. We hope they’re in place by August so we can do a dummy run before all of the account holders have to have their accounts established on December 1.
“The problem is, if they change those coefficients, manufacturers have already committed to their 2023 production. They’ve missed the boat. And if they change those coefficients, then the penalties can change by a significant amount.
“That’s the risk we face not having things done in a timely manner to allow us to then alter our business practices to meet the new targets.
“The government doesn’t seem to have an understanding about how the new vehicle sector works, and the timelines they require to get changes committed through the factories. It usually takes us a year to 18 months to affect change in a meaningful way.”
Suzuki New Zealand has been one of the most vocal brands when it comes to questioning the tare-weight coefficient penalties. In its Land Transport Amendment Bill submission to government late last year, it felt that the tare-weight coefficient in its current form is set to render light vehicles “unviable” versus medium-sized cars and SUVs.
It recommended in its submission that the weight-based formula should “only apply to vehicles above the national target”, meaning that “everything meeting national target just gets that as their target” in order to reduce the penalties to lighter cars.
Suzuki’s submission eventually went on to claim that the marque could leave the country if Clean Car legislation is passed into action without changes, although it later walked back these claims. The Ministry of Transport responded to Suzuki’s submission in December, stating that the legislation around weight would be reviewed although it did not recommend any changes at the time.
“We also note that our current design and formula, which sets stronger targets for small vehicles than for large vehicles, is deliberate. The underlying policy is based upon the idea that moving consumers from large vehicles to small vehicles is not a sufficient way to reduce fleet emissions, even though in general it would achieve this,” said the ministry’s response to Suzuki.
