Sales rebound ‘two years away’

The Motor Industry Association (MIA) predicts it may take another two years until sales of new EVs return to the levels seen in previous years after a surprise shift in consumer demand preferences.

Its figures show 10,632 new EVs – that is battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) – were sold last year, down from 31,400 in 2023 and 24,400 in 2022.

The market share of those vehicles was 7.7 per cent in 2024, compared with 19.8 per cent and 13.8 per cent in the previous two years respectively.

Aimee Wiley, MIA chief executive, says its members expected a dip in EV sales at the start of last year following the government’s axeing of the clean car discount but the recovery in activity has been slower than many predicted.

“Nobody expected the shift in terms of consumer demand preferences to higher emission products so substantially,” she told Newsroom.

“We expected in the short term to sell more of what had had a penalty and less of what had a rebate. But we expected the market to normalise out come the middle of the year and we just didn’t see that happen.”

Wiley, pictured, notes besides the end of rebates, the state of the economy, road user charges for EVs and an increase in ACC levies for electric light vehicles also hit the number of registrations last year.

She believes consumers will return to choosing EVs when buying a new car but the market rebound is “probably now along the lines of a 36-month recovery” as opposed to the 12 months expected by many dealers at the start of 2024. 

Newsroom says analysis of sales figures suggests New Zealand is currently 16,500 clean cars short of where it would have been had EV purchasing continued at the levels seen before the coalition government took power.