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NZ’s electric car sales dropped 70% last year while global sales rose, but the Transport Minister says his policies aren’t to blame
As Marc Daalder wrote:
Perhaps the supply problem is a reflection of that second issue Bishop cited: low demand. Why would an automaker send EVs to New Zealand if no one will buy them and they’ll be sold cut-price, potentially at a loss?
In 2023, New Zealand was among the world’s leading adopters of electric vehicles. But in 2024, it saw the second steepest decline in year-on-year EV sales – a 70 percent decrease, compared with the global average of a 15.6 percent increase in sales.
The cause for this is clear. The motor industry has repeatedly pointed to the Government’s decision to axe the Clean Car Discount – which placed fees on higher-emitting vehicles at the point of sale to fund rebates for EVs and some hybrids – as the cause of the collapse of New Zealand’s electric car market.
Had EV uptake in New Zealand simply continued at its 2023 rate, 30,000 more EVs would have been registered here – a 25 percent increase in the total size of the electric fleet. And that’s just if the adoption rate was flat, not growing like it has elsewhere in the world.
If you've got solar, the best option is to use as much of it as possible to avoid high grid prices, but being paid to export energy is a nice cherry on top. It means many New Zealanders end up getting paid by their power company and shorten the payback period of their systems. Regulatory changes that meant customers would be paid more for exporting at peak times were meant to make batteries more appealing to customers and reduce the need for more investment in expensive poles and wires, but, as Marc Daalder writes in Newsroom, some retailers are not passing on the full value of those exports.
Read moreDownloadFinancial commentator Frances Cook uses her own story to show that that an investment in solar and an EV significantly outperforms the stock market and fellow number cruncher Nadine Higgins says that if you do it right, EVs are cheaper to run and own; EV sales have climbed to their highest level since 2022 and are closing in on 2023's numbers and Go Rentals has just invested $2.3 million in some new Tesla Model Y Premiums; the gap between energy costs of diesel vans and utes and electric vans and utes is absolutely massive; solar is also going off right now, with one installer in Otago 448% above their sales target in March; Lightforce has gone back to the Barretts with a new TV ad; Wellington mayor Andrew Little explains its electrification strategy and Hutt City Council shares data showing how its fleet has gone from dirty Toyotas to cleaner EVs; Shenzen in China has electrified its public transport and taxis and that's come with big benefits - and some challenges; and a very simple illustration of the LNG terminal.
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