EV boom hits the brakes

2026-02-09 - 16:08

For a while there, electric vehicles felt inevitable in New Zealand, attracting a growing number of Kiwi drivers. The future, humming quietly along city and rural roads, was silent, clean, and cheaper to run. Then the brakes went on. The Detail looks at why, talking to long-time EV user Ed Harvey, founder and CEO of Evnex – an EV smart charging company in Christchurch. He says in the space of a couple of years, electric vehicle sales have slumped, with the blame trail leading straight to Wellington. The Government scrapped the clean car discount, introduced EV road-user charges, and, most recently, weakened the clean car standards. “Government ministers would say they didn’t think it was working – they would probably say, look, the market share is way down, that’s proving Kiwis don’t really want electric vehicles, but I think the Government has ... really leveraged the politicisation of EVs to their advantage,” Harvey tells The Detail. “And they haven’t shown leadership in a technology that is actually going to save Kiwis money.” Harvey built his own EV car, converting his Honda Accord, while at university in 2013. He’s since sold it, upgrading to another EV. But he says fewer Kiwis are joining him for the silent drive on New Zealand roads. “We are definitely not soaring. 2025 was not the best year; I would say it was sort of flat, if not a very moderate growth.” In terms of pure B-EVs (battery electric vehicles rather than hybrids) just over 9000 were sold in the New Zealand market last year. That’s just over a 4 percent market share, a slight increase on 2024 but a big dip on the year before. In 2023, which was the last year of the clean car discount, B-EVs had a 10 percent market share, translating to 26,000 sold. “And even the year before that, in 2022, we had just under 20,000 sold, and, again, compare that with just over 9000 last year, it’s a huge drop, which is really disappointing for those of us in the industry,” Harvey says. After the Government scrapped the clean car discount – the rebate that knocked thousands of dollars off the price of an electric vehicle – EVs were brought into the road user charge net. For years, EV drivers had been exempt – a deliberate incentive to encourage uptake. That advantage disappeared, the Government arguing fairness. Everyone pays their way. Then late last year, penalties under the Clean Vehicle Standard – designed to push importers toward low-emission cars – were slashed, and the pressure to prioritise cleaner vehicles eased. The Government insists the slowdown reflects global trends and tight household budgets. But Harvey says it has come at a devastating cost to the environment and for EV businesses. “It’s done huge damage to the industry. There were a lot of fledgling businesses that were building, whether it be EV-charging infrastructure, like us, or battery recycling, or EV service specialists that were starting to grow quite well back in 2022/23. It’s done a huge amount of damage to those businesses, and they have lost a lot of confidence.” It prompted him to write opinion pieces for