NZ now 14,000 EVs short after subsidy scrapped

Analysis: The scrapping of the Clean Car Discount and the subsequent crashing of the electric vehicle market means New Zealand has a gap of 14,000 EVs which would otherwise have been purchased, according to a Newsroom analysis of pre-election sales trends.
The latest registration data for October shows sales of new battery electrics and plug-in hybrids were down two-thirds on October 2023.
In total, battery vehicles made up just 5.2 percent of new sales last month. That’s the lowest figure since May and well below the 2023 average of 14 percent, for the last full year when the Clean Car Discount was in effect.
Plug-in hybrids have similarly struggled, making up 2.6 percent of new sales in October as compared with an average of 5.6 percent last year.
Although overall vehicle sales have risen in recent months after a winter slump, that hasn’t filtered through to dramatically better sales for clean cars.
Newsroom set out to understand how many battery electrics and plug-in hybrids – collectively considered EVs – would have been sold since the election based on pre-election trends had the subsidies not been scrapped.
The analysis applied the proportion of EVs sold in the 12 months before the election to overall car sales since. This accounts for changes in overall auto sales but does assume that the rate of EV purchasing wouldn’t have increased since, so represents a conservative assumption.
According to this calculation, more than 38,500 EVs would have been registered between October 2023 and October 2024 if sales had followed pre-elections trends.
Instead, just 24,500 battery electrics and plug-in hybrids have been registered in the same period, with more than half of that coming in the final three months of 2023 before the Clean Car Discount was axed.
The analysis suggests New Zealand is 14,000 EVs short of where it would otherwise be. The total battery electric and plug-in hybrid fleet in New Zealand consisted of 116,200 vehicles in October, meaning the scrapping of the subsidies has avoided fleet growth of about 12 percent in just 13 months.
The emissions impacts of these missed EVs are significant. Non-EVs registered over the period since the election emit on average 14.5 kilograms of CO2 for every 100 kilometres travelled more than EVs – or 1.2 tonnes more per year, based on average use.
Across the 14,000 missing EVs, that adds up to nearly 18,000 tonnes of additional emissions a year. That will compound in the future as the dirtier vehicles continue to be driven and as the EV gap widens past 14,000.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown said the collapse in EV sales was due to people bringing their clean car purchases forward to the final months of 2023 in order to take advantage of the discount.
Newsroom’s analysis, however, shows the late-2023 spike in EV registrations has been dwarfed by the subsequent slump across 2024.
“Ultimately, as price points continue to reduce and as the economy improves – you’ve got to acknowledge that it’s been a very tough year for the economy and car sales across the board have been down – we know those EV sales will eventually increase again,” Brown said.
“Interest rates are starting to come down which is good news and that will lead to a more buoyant economy and a more buoyant car market.”