PRICE ON
Words: Greg Price“T
he government has proposed a sweeping fuel-
efficient-vehicle policy that would make some cars
up to $8000 cheaper while others would be $3000
more expensive!” states a recent opinion-paper headline.
Whatever next? We’ve previously had a registration system
that depended (supposedly) on how big your vehicle was, to
encourage us into less ‘gas-guzzling’ vehicles. That scheme
was only recently scrapped. It wasn’t very effective, though,
as my Mustang was cheaper to register than my Toyota! Now
we have the ‘Feebate’ scheme, so-called because it is not a new
tax, as there hasn’t been one — if you can believe government
sources — but for the life of me I
cannot understand how getting me
to pay extra for buying a particular
type of vehicle isn’t some sort
of tax.Wheeler-dealers
Predictably, this has upset used
car importers, who will have to
manage the process. Remember
when import restrictions were
loosened in the late 1980s? This
saw organized car-buying tours to
Japan by private individuals keen
to buy a second-hand car that
had bells and whistles as standard
issue, not optional extras as here in
New Zealand — a practice that cut
out the dealers altogether!
Remember, also, the Saturday-
morning radio programme
Cost Your Car, where you called
in to get an estimate from a car
dealer on the value of your car?
If you mentioned that it was an
import, it suddenly became worth
nothing. The used car industry
then lobbied the government of
the day to further relax import
licensing to allow dealers to import
cars, and the floodgates opened. At
the time, I thought it was funny
that a privately imported car was worth nothing but a dealer-
imported one was suddenly valuable!Conspiracy?
New car and used car importers are rarely on the same side,
but on this they do agree: for many years, we have been told
— mainly by the car industry — that our vehicle fleet is too
old, with an average age of 14 years and climbing; also that
we should really change our vehicles every five years — which
the dealers would they appreciate very much for its additional
contribution to their lifestyle. If anyone is any doubt that the
used car industry does not have our interests at heart, witness
the delay in implementing the frontal-impact standards!
The main problem for the importers is that there is now a
fair bit of competition for second-hand vehicles in Japan; that
is already squeezing their profit margins, and they don’t want
a bar of anything that makes the vehicles that people want
now — gas-guzzling SUVs — any more expensive.EV or not EV
Second-hand electric-vehicle (EV) imports/sales have also
hit a pothole, with allegations of impaired battery life amongother claims, and, of course, if EVs really were so wonderful,
wouldn’t the government be directing all its departments to
buy them? You’d think so, but no. More important, you’d
think that the cars provided to MPs at taxpayer expense
would be EVs. Yeah, right! (Insert a Tui billboard here.) In
addition, claims that they are cheap to run only hold water
until road-user charges are introduced for them, as for diesel
vehicles. And let’s not forget the claims about the nation’s
power grid being unable to cope with the sudden drain
if a street full of EVs decides to plug into the grid at the
same time.Pollution solution
Back to the ‘car wars’. Second-hand
dealers are moaning, but the plan
appears to be to wind down the
import of heavy polluters, perhaps
with the gradual introduction of
emission standards, which would
progressively get tougher over a
three-year period, starting in 2022.
That’s fine with me, as long as it
applies only to future imports.
I guess what annoys me the most
about this continued meddling
with the standards surrounding
imports, and the resulting effect
on existing car prices, is that, back
in the late 1980s, the first thing
removed from an import was the
emission-control system, “because
it impaired performance”. Now
that the country is filled with
non-compliant cars, we’re expected
to replace them, at great expense!
If associate transport minister
Julie Anne Genter were to require
car dealers, at their own expense,
to supply and retrofit emission
controls to high-emitting imported
vehicles already in the country, I’d
be all for it. However, to impose
higher standards retroactively
on owners of cars that the government let dealers import,
modify, and sell — cars that would be illegal in Japan —
would be simply criminal. It hasn’t happened yet, but we
should be wary of the fact that there have been no specific
denials of retroactive emissions controls being introduced,
because that would be the thin end of the wedge.
Hopefully, the government can see through the throng of
lobbyists that even hinting at imposing such standards on
our classic cars is tantamount to political suicide, and that
the thousands of businesses that exist to service and maintain
our classic vehicles are staffed with — wait for it — voters!
I’ve owned one of my classic cars for 46 years, and another for
41 years. Read my lips, politicians: “I am not going to give
up any of my classics for some hare-brained MP’s idea that
I should switch to an EV” — and, neither, I would hazard a
guess, will any other classic car owner!
I, for one, would like to see the Federation of Motoring
Clubs step up to the plate and make it clear that classic and
specialist cars are at risk in broad-brush government moves
designed to manipulate the national fleet; it’s a fight many
would be up for.
Drive safely, while you’re still allowed to!CAR WARS
Here we go again — the
government tuning up our
taste in cars86 New Zealand Classic Car | themotorhood.com