Proposed investment into infrastructure for electric vehicles will see more people turning to battery power according to Automobile Association's Simon Douglas.
Earlier this month, National Party leader Christopher Luxon promised 10,000 electric vehicle chargers by 2030 if elected. Automobile Association's chief policy and advocacy officer Simon Douglas says underinvestment in EV charging facilities is one of the associations election calls.
'We're really happy to see more and more EVs on the roads, but the problem is our public charging infrastructure isn't keeping up - there are more than 80,000 EVs out there, but we've only about 400 charging sites for them to use,” says Simon. He thinks National Party's promise of 10,000 more EV chargers will see uptake in EV use and will address 'range anxiety”.
'Overcoming range anxiety is the biggest thing that people are worried about. The key to that is making sure that there's an [EV charger] network in place so if people are caught short away from home, or away from their normal place of charging –they can access a public charger, get a top up and get to where they're going in the same as we do with a petrol station.” Simon says having the same level of infrastructure for EV chargers as petrol stations will 'help increase people's confidence to purchase an EV and meet our emissions targets”.
End to exemption
At the same time National Party have also stated if they win, EV users will be subject to road user charges as they are currently exempt from fuel excise taxes. Simon says 'it's about time for this exemption to end”.
'The exemption for EV's in paying road user charges was brought in as a tool to help incentivise to buy EV's. Since then we've seen the clean car standard and the clean car discount introduced and those have proven to be much more effective tools and we've seen a much faster uptake in the purchase of EVs.
'If we're to maintain balance in the system and make sure that we've got the funding and the revenue necessary to maintain the roads in a safe and proper way, then yes it's time for the road exemption to end.”