The real problem isn’t the car: It’s the way we move.

“In my mind, the issue is not vehicles,” said Briggs, speaking at last week’s Carbon and Energy Professionals Conference.

“We've got a Low Emissions Transport Fund – we've looked at the vehicles. What we've not looked at is how people move and how we can move people more sustainably, and better use of alternative transport modes.”

Briggs said that while New Zealand has a slow adoption rate of electric vehicles compared to many OECD countries, it was at one stage leading the world in growth rates when grants became available for the uptake of those vehicles.

“People reflect the views of the government of the day, and this government hasn't really prioritised the shift to electric vehicles and that's just reflected in the buying behaviour.”

New Zealand has one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world, with 880 cars per thousand people. Briggs said this is a key challenge.

“We're amplifying the problem. We have more cars per person in New Zealand than just about any other country on the planet, and we drive them and we drive them longer distances than anyone. And that's got to change.”

He said that simply switching to electric vehicles doesn’t solve the broader issue of inefficient transport systems and wasted energy.

“Those 880 [vehicles] are stationary 95% of the time. That's a lot of energy wasted. If all of that money in all of those vehicles could be put somewhere else more productively, then how well-off would we be?”

Instead of focusing solely on private vehicles, Briggs advocates for a systems approach to sustainable transport, one that looks at how to move people and goods around more efficiently.

“The electric vehicle has a role to play in that. But there's a whole raft of other electric options that I really would be keen to pursue. Trackless trams, autonomous shuttles – far more sustainable and efficient than just compounding the congestion problem of shifting people out of ICE vehicles into electric vehicles.”

Briggs shared a moment that summed it up: “I said we've got to get people out of cars. There was a guy at the front who said ‘You're spot on. My commute time will halve if you can get everybody else out of the cars’. And I thought, yep, that's the main problem.”

Aligning with government and the market

While the transition to lower-emission energy may be slower than hoped, Briggs affirmed that EECA remains committed to its mission.
“We are the lead agency and the expert voice on energy use,” he told the conference.

“We need to do fewer things better to be able to make an impact. Energy efficiency is even more critical today, and in times of economic hardship, it offers a relatively inexpensive and effective way to reduce energy consumption and lower operating costs.”

Briggs noted that EECA must align with both government priorities and the current market environment, focusing on affordability, energy security, and economic growth.

“Inaction is a plausible excuse,” he warned. “But opportunities can present themselves when in survival mode.”

He said EECA’s current work programme is being reshaped to reflect a leaner budget and a sharper focus on impact.

“We are committed to delivering on our current work programme whilst we reshape it to better align with government priorities. We do have a reduced baseline and that will have an impact on some of our longer term initiatives.”

Among those initiatives are smarter tools for consumers and businesses, such as EECA’s list of approved EV chargers and technology scans into options like hot water heat pumps and electric motors.

EECA is also reconsidering how it supports new technology, moving from grants to other financial instruments like concessionary loans and energy savings guarantees.

“There will always be a role for grants, particularly in that high-risk early adoption technology phase where someone's got to be a first mover,” said Briggs. “But in that subsequent diffusion space, it's probably less of a role for grants and more for other financial options that we are now currently exploring.

“Concessionary loans are only one option. We're also looking at energy savings guarantees and also underwriting investments. But it's not EECA’s role to compete with the finance industry or the banking sector. EECA’s role is to help remove the barriers to enable finance to enable and support those initiatives. So we're exploring a range of options and hopefully the right one will emerge for the right technology at the right stage of evolution and energy use.”

Funding

Despite financial pressures, EECA’s Low Emission Heavy Vehicle Fund, a $30 million initiative aimed at getting cleaner trucks on the road, survived the latest budget.

That fund was launched at very short notice, Briggs said.“I think we went from design to being in the market in about six weeks.”

He acknowledged that progress in the heavy freight sector will be hard-won. “The market is depressed. It's a low-margin business,” he said. “Success will be determined as much by the demand for lower emission contracts as it is amongst freight carriers looking to buy vehicles.”

“So we're also working on a range of initiatives as to how we can help that market, and how to get the demand and supply into more balance.

The government last week announced it would be updating the Low Emissions Heavy Vehicle Fund, which included expanded vehicle categories, increased grant levels, and broadened eligibility for conversions.

EECA has funded around 400 projects through the LETF since 2017. And while only five have failed, Briggs said, “the learnings we got from those five were far greater than probably the development of the rest.”

As for public EV charging, EECA was an early catalyst.

“The Low Emission Vehicle Contestable Fund and later the Low Emission Transport Fund got into EV charging by accident,” Briggs said.

"The fund existed to demonstrate zero emission technologies and we realised that to move from demonstration to early adoption in the absence of any public charging network was going to be our biggest challenge.

“We funded our first EV charger in 2017 with ChargeNet. Now there’s around 1,500 public chargers. The government has determined that they have a target of 10,000 chargers by 2030, and that now moves from being a technology demonstration phase into more of a low-risk infrastructure phase.”

Brigg said EECA's focus will now shift from the light vehicle fleet to other transport modes, such as heavy vehicles, off-road and marine applications.

"So while the fuel of the future will be determined by the market, the availability, distribution and ability to refuel those will be a government requirement moving forward.”