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Comment by dzhiurgis | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to know how come cheapest $40k USD ($62.3k NZD) Tesla in US, cost $75.9k or about 18% more in NZ?

And come the only "incentive" is "you don't pay road tax thru fuel" (while you still pay quite a bit thru yearly registration)?

How come there are 0 electric buses or heavy equipment in Auckland or whole NZ?

How come solar panels for your boat or lithium batteries for your bike (or electric bikes themselves) cost something like 4x than outside world?

And also where are the bike paths? Or even pedestrian paths in some places? If you live in North Shore and wanna get into city using your electric motorbike (that costs 2-4x per year to keep registered when compared to a car)? Tough look.

Ah yes scooters, nearly destroyed by likes of NZHerald with fear mongering articles...

Lastly this one is more to criticise business and I actually find them vile and atrocious - but where are all the Impossible Burgers?

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Yes, also keep in mind that incentive won't last long (ref: https://www.transport.govt.nz/multi-modal/climatechange/elec...). Once EV's make up > 2% of NZ's vehicle fleet they plan to start charging.

Given the suitability of NZ for EV's it would be nice if there was more government support for their uptake.

While I agree that we should be incentivising EVs in NZ, I will point out that NZ is also probably one of the least suitable countries for EVs.

Most of NZ is very sparsely populated; your transport choices are basically fly or drive yourself. There isn't much of a rail network and buses take forever. There are basically no motorways. The South Island especially has a lot of mountains, and many roads that cover over high passes.

My wife and I are looking at an EV for our second car, but my primary vehicle will be an ICE for the foreseeable future. It's just hard to go camping, skiing, or even travel between the larger towns in an EV.

Utter nonsense. The longest stretch without a gas station in NZ is something like 1-2 hours. 30 minutes between a house or a farm where you'd be able to get help in an emergency.

Plus 90% of people never leave cities anyway. Finally EVs will soon have longer range than ICE's.

I am not sure what roads do you travel, but I find it's actually quite difficult to hide on NZ roads - if you wanna do something cheeky or sleep - you'll be driving long way to find something that's not private property or fenced farm. Nature is absolutely gorgeous but it's already divided and feels almost artificial (even my father joking they've put speakers in bush to make fake bird sounds).

I've been disappointed with all of that too. The only EV in any quantity here is the Nissan Leaf, used from Japan with reduced battery capacity/life.

Where I live I can't ride my bicycle to work without taking a risk higher than I'm willing to take, riding on a road without shoulders alongside milk trucks.

I looked into converting one hectare into native forest to get $4000 from the government. The cost is $20,000, and requires supervision by council and a "management plan". I became disheartened and decided to just shove poplar and willow branches in the ground and let it go wild. Government pays me $0 for taking that farmland off the market.

There are a lot of basic practical things that are holding people back who want to lower their carbon footprint, things that don't need any new innovations but just need to get done.

Oh don't get me started on how councils and Fletcher are manipulating entire NZ's real estate market.

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