Recently the NZ government announced that electric cars will be exempt from road user charges, in a move to encourage more people to switch to electric powered vehicles. it's effective from october this year & will be reviewed in four years. it's good that this government is doing at least one positive thing, altho the transport minister's rationale for it - that there are very few electric vehicles in nz so the revenue loss will be insignificant - is indicative of their short-sightedness. the motivation for this move is to increase the electric fleet, therefore if it's successful the loss of revenue will be significant ... perhaps that's why they're slashing jobs in the public service now?
road user charges in nz are not too massive, i think for an ordinary car these days it's about NZ$280. if your car is over 40 years old, like mine, then it's only about $80 a year (in australia it's a lot more, because it includes compulsory third party insurance). uvbt it's still some encouragement for the average car user to consider going electric.
