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Like your correspondent, Johan, we have a small diesel car for economy (?) reasons.

As well as Road User Charges (RUC), we also pay a far higher registration fee than petrol driven vehicles. Why is this?

Our small Toyota Sprinter does no more damage to the roads than any other family vehicle so why do we pay the same RUC as heavy vehicles?

There is no incentive to have a more environmentally friendly vehicle which is sad.

Leigh

From the "Ask Jack" archives - 14 December 2009

The RUC charges have been changed in recent times to reflect a difference between heavy and small diesel vehicles. I guess it's all about collecting an equal amount of fees between the two fuels but I agree it gets very confusing.

Interestingly, the pump price for diesel is more expensive than petrol in Australia which could happen if we were to pay all the fees at the pump in NZ. The advantage of diesel over petrol would simply come down to straight fuel consumption.

The principal reason why the licensing fee for a diesel vehicle is higher than a petrol, is the ACC levy.

There is a base ACC levy which is applied on annual licensing for both petrol and diesel vehicles.

There is however an additional levy on petrol sold at the pump.

This additional pump levy is not applied to diesel so the balance is made up by increasing the registration costs.