Drive Electric released a report this week on the state of the electric vehicle sector. The not-for-profit organisation advocates for electric vehicle uptake and the decarbonisation of New Zealand’s transport sector.
The report briefly touches on the uptake of electric vehicles after the conflict in the Middle East erupted at the start of March.
‘‘The Clean Car programme has been dismantled and [this] had demonstrably stalled New Zealand’s EV uptake,’’ the report said.
‘‘The sector is recovering — the March 2026, EV sales surge in response to the Iran-US conflict reflected genuine consumer appetite — but policy volatility creates uncertainty, increases cost and slows progress across the entire EV ecosystem.’’
New vehicle sales hit 9864 registrations for April, with 23% of these sales made up of battery-electric and plug-in-hybrid vehicles. That was down from 25% in March.
Andrew Simms operations general manager Kevin Schreuder told the Otago Daily Times yesterday interest was still strong for electric vehicles, although it had dropped from the rush in March when the war broke out.
‘‘We've still got significant forward orders for vehicles. We've got people that are waiting for cars to arrive now,’’ he said.
‘‘Australia and New Zealand are doing very well, to the point where the BYD company have actually got a number of their own ships now for transporting vehicles around the world.
‘‘There's a boat about to leave China, one of the BYD ships, that’s heading to Australia with 5000 vehicles on board. The demand from Australia and New Zealand [is] still very, very good.’’
He said the previous doubts around electric vehicles and had been put to bed.
‘‘That's a thing of the past, really. There's no issue with electric vehicles now. The technology's been around for a long, long time now. You still get the odd person, and there's this sort of range anxiety.’’
But he said some hybrids had a range of more than 1000km and were high quality vehicles.
Worries over battery life — and the cost of a new one — were also out of date, he said.
‘‘They don't lose their state of charge these days and that's where the future is as well.
‘‘A lot of these batteries, when these cars do fall to pieces or literally get to end of their life in 15 years' time, the battery is going to be usable for battery storage for households or whatever it is.’’
Companies were keen to change to electric vehicles with fuel bills rising.
‘‘One company that we're dealing with at the moment is a big transport logistics company. Their diesel fuel bill in most months, before all this carry-on, was around just under a million dollars a month. Their fuel bill in March was $1.8m.
‘‘So, they're really feeling it.’’
He said their fuel bill would be less than half of that if they switched to electric.
Truck and trailer units were not going to change soon, but there were still a lot of vehicles which could.
The Drive Electric report said the country held structural advantages most countries could not match, including 88% renewable electricity generation and a grid fully capable of charging the entire light vehicle fleet off peak.
It said while the used EV fleet is dominated by the Nissan Leaf, the number of new models and range have increased dramatically since 2023.
‘‘While battery prices have dropped significantly and price parity with internal combustion vehicles is nearing, many Kiwis were still unable to afford the upfront cost of an EV.’’
It was clear that supply, demand and infrastructure policies must be co-ordinated.
The market needed certainty as without that, private capital would head elsewhere, consumers would delay purchases and the transition away from liquid fuels would be slower and more expensive.
