Push for More Electric Cars on NZ Roads

Energy and Resources Minister Judith Collins said the Government would set aside $2.5m to help stimulate the electric-vehicle market in the country.

“The funding will provide up to 50 per cent funding for projects that will demonstrate and showcase low emission vehicle technologies in high-profile, visible ways that will help to normalise these technologies, and that can be implemented relatively quickly,” Collins said in a statement.

New Zealand was among the most recent movers on the incentive front, forming a special counsel tasked with accelerating the deployment of electric vehicles on the road last year.

Collins said the funding is part of an effort to put 64,000 electric vehicles on New Zealand’s roads by 2021. A measure included the Paris climate declaration, meanwhile, calls for 100 million electric vehicles on the market by 2030 in an effort to curb pollution levels.

“They will reduce the emissions that come from the country’s vehicle fleet,” she said. “An electric vehicle in New Zealand produces 80 per cent fewer carbon emissions than a petrol or diesel powered vehicle.”

Original article by Daniel Graeber, UPI, January 19, 2017.

Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI.