Suzuki New Zealand has outlined concerns that the local focus on electric vehicles is going to leave many of its customers high and dry as car prices rise and alternatives depart from the market.

Speaking at the launch of the new Vitara Hybrid late last week, Suzuki New Zealand chief executive Tom Peck spoke out against the Clean Car Standard – a standard that Suzuki appears likely to struggle to keep pace with in the coming years.

Peck also showed concern around whether the brand’s customers will be able to afford the inevitable EVs that Suzuki will need to introduce to its line-up in order to meet the emission standard’s demands.

“[The government] took what was already the toughest emission regulation in Europe, and they stripped out all the bits that allowed you to actually beat it. So it’s not particularly friendly to light vehicles, it’s not particularly friendly to any vehicles,” said Peck.

“From our point of view, if a Swift EV was the same price as a [Nissan] Leaf for instance – $60 or 70k – it’s a big challenge for our current customer base,” Peck added.

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“Our plan has been and will continue to be to move forward, introducing more hybrids and other electrification in a staged manner. Based on our recent sales it obviously seems to be working for us and our customer base at the present time.”

Suzuki New Zealand general manager Gary Collins said that approximately 92.5% of Suzuki customers purchase cars priced at $35,000 or less.

“We have a customer base that purchases their models because they love the brand, and many of them simply can’t afford a more expensive vehicle. So we would lose many of our existing customers if we jumped straight towards a $70,000 BEV model,” said Collins.

The cheapest electric car currently on sale in New Zealand is a title held by the $49,990 MG ZS EV crossover and GWM Ora Cat hatchback, with both models eligable for the Clean Car Discount $8,625 rebate, effectively pricing them at just over $40,000 plus on-road costs.

The comments come after Suzuki New Zealand achieved its strongest annual sales figures to date in 2022, notching up 8,494 vehicle sales during the calendar year, with the Swift, Jimny, and Vitara leading the way.

As the brand pushes to lower the emissions average of its fleet, it has started phasing out selected pure internal combustion engine models in its line-up, starting with its popular Vitara.

At the aforementioned Vitara Hybrid launch, it was confirmed that the Vitara’s standard pure petrol variants will soon disappear from showrooms – the company announcing it won’t be ordering any more non-hybrid 1.4-litre Vitara models. The brand’s remaining petrol-exclusive Vitara stock is expected to last several months before departing the range.

Whilst it didn’t confirm it would be doing the same with any of its other nameplates, it was noted that the Swift could be the next model to become a dedicated hybrid. This could potentially mean the end of the road for the much loved Swift Sport; the most affordable hot hatch on the market.

“We need to steadily transition over a period of time to higher price vehicles, so we don’t abandon the existing customers,” added Collins. “The move to hybrid models is a very important component of this transition, and will allow us to continue offering affordable vehicles that suit our market.”

Suzuki New Zealand’s relationship with the government’s Clean Car Discount and Clean Car Standard schemes has long been a complicated one. The discount scheme has aided Suzuki, which sports one of the most low-emission line-ups in the country despite not offering an EV.

Conversely, the brand has long believed that the Clean Car Standard unfairly targets the likes of the Jimny and Swift due to the way it factors in weight to how it calculates emissions penalties.

Such was the company’s view on the Clean Car Standard that Suzuki New Zealand stated in its submission to the government’s Land Transport Amendment Bill in 2021 that it was assessing withdrawing from New Zealand – a statement the company walked back shortly afterwards.

With April 1 marking the first anniversary of the Clean Car Discount’s so-called ‘ute tax’ fee and hybrid and low-emission petrol rebate aspects, Peck expects that there could be some form of announcement made by the government coming soon.

The CEO expects that the government could make the decision to roll back the availability of rebates for hybrids and low-emitting petrol vehicles. Should this come to pass, it would be another tough pill for Suzuki New Zealand to swallow.

“We have a feeling that [the government] is going to go back to just BEV and PHEV, as it was originally when they first started. Under that scenario, the Vitara Hybrid would not get a discount,” said Peck.

“We’re expecting an announcement from the government on the first of April, and we don’t know what they’re going to do.”