Letters to the Minister of Transport - an ongoing saga…
22 December 2025
In December 2023, we wrote an open letter to the then Minister of Transport requesting he reconsider axing the Clean Car Discount, which had provided rebates for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. He didn’t respond.
Undeterred, we wrote to the Minister again in November 2025. This time, the Minister of Transport responded (and promptly too). His letter is here in full.
Unfortunately, it appears Hon Chris Bishop didn’t read our letter.
Maybe we weren’t clear enough. So we’ve tried again. Our new open letter to the Minister of Transport reads as follows:
22 December 2025
To: Hon Chris Bishop, Minister of Transport
By email: C.Bishop@ministers.govt.nz
Dear Minister
Thank you for your prompt response (12 December 2025) to our email of 24 November 2025 regarding cuts to the Clean Car Standard (the Standard).
We were aware of the challenges faced by vehicle importers to source clean vehicles and the potential for consumers to incur extra costs (as pointed out in your letter). We are also aware of the emissions standards required by the Vehicle Exhaust Emissions Rule 2007 for different vehicle sectors. However, we wish to point out that vehicles which emit more greenhouse gas emissions generally release more harmful (particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide) emissions also. The emissions standards are the maximum limit vehicles need to meet during official testing but do not necessarily reflect what vehicles do when driven in the real world.
Possibly we were not sufficiently clear in our earlier correspondence as we were specifically seeking your responses to the following questions:
Can you please indicate what analysis was undertaken of the externality costs (e.g. the extra societal burden of the increased greenhouse gas and harmful emissions of “temporarily” relaxing the Standard) versus the risk of an estimated $264 million in net charges being incurred by households and businesses?
Will an analysis of the above externality costs be undertaken when you comprehensively review the wider Standard, prior to Cabinet report back in mid-2026?
As we mentioned in our original letter, peer-reviewed and accepted externality costs for air pollution emissions and greenhouse gas emissions (the latter as shadow prices of carbon) have been available in The Treasury’s CBAx model since 2022.
We therefore request an assurance from you that the broader costs to society of air emissions (including greenhouse gases, particulates and other harmful pollutants) from transport will be considered in future policy changes.
Yours sincerely / Ngā mihi
Lou Wickham, Director, Emission Impossible Ltd
Dr Gerda Kuschel, Director & Senior Air Quality Specialist, Emission Impossible Ltd
Jayne Metcalfe, Director & Senior Air Quality Specialist, Emission Impossible Ltd
Professor Alistair Woodward, Epidemiologist and public health medicine specialist, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland