New Zealand bottom of EV charger league

International Energy Agency figures show New Zealand is at the bottom of 31 nations in providing  public charging points for each electric vehicle – EV.

As of April, New Zealand had 1,200 public EV chargers, one for about every 59 fully electric cars.

The government promised to roll out 10,000 public EV chargers by 2030. That means installing 130 chargers a month, but the rate last year was 21 a month, according to lobby group Drive Electric.

The government removing EV subsidies has seen sales of new EVs plunge from 27% of the market last year to 8% so far this year: well behind China, the EU and the US for EV uptake. 

More EV Statistics: EECA updates its nation-wide count of EV chargers every quarter.

As of April there were 1,248 chargers – 826 in North Island and 422 in the South.

• Of the 80 that came online this year before the end of April, 62 were installed by private provider  ChargeNET.
• Another 210 have been co-funded by the government through EECA but not yet built, and are expected to be live in 2024 (149) and 2025 (61).
• Nationally just 1.45 percent of cars are EVs – including 75,000 fully-electric plug-ins and about 30,000 plug-in hybrids (which also have a petrol engine).

Transport Minister Simeon Brown has said as well as offering charger co-funding, the government is addressing resource consent requirements for EV chargers.  He noted that since the coalition was elected, 225 vehicle charging points have been added nationally.