Australia’s new fuel efficiency scheme has been in place for just seven months.
But the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard has already created a new, tradeable carbon currency applying just to cars and light commercial vehicles (utes and vans) market. In just months, the scheme has created a surplus of roughly 16 million “NVES unit” credits.
When manufacturers sell efficient cars, they earn credits. When they sell high-emitting ones, they rack up a debt. Any debts will have to be settled either by buying credits from car companies in surplus or by paying financial penalties.
