sales are still going strong in – of doubling year-on-year – but how does our nation’s take up and incentives compare to across The Ditch? New Zealand is a well-known leader in renewable energy and as expected, Kiwis were keen early adopters of . Strong demand for in New Zealand was driven by a rebate scheme, more available models and cheaper pricing, leading to in 2022 and 2023, with EVs accounting for a whopping 27 per cent of new vehicle registrations last year. By comparison, about 8.
5 per cent of new vehicles sales in Australia in 2023 were electric and they account for 9.5 per cent of sales this year to date. While New Zealander EV drivers benefit from huge discounts on electricity between 9pm and 7am, Sydney MG EV owner Peter Callaghan told that Aussies needed to “hunt around” to find incentives and the cheapest way to power up their vehicles which varied between energy providers.
“I can charge my car now for 8 cents per kilowatt hour between midnight and 6am,” he said. “I've only been with AGL for a few weeks, but it costs $3.80 to charge my car from 30 per cent to 80 per cent.
“Now I just plug the car in before I go to bed, set 'scheduled charging', then wake up in the morning and it's charged 80 per cent.” While New Zealand has been leading the charge towards an electric future for some years, all this changed following the end of favourable rebates and the implementation of road taxes matching diesel rates, which saw EV registrations drop to abo.