While many nations’ EV sales are accelerating, data from Ember via Visual Capitalist shows New Zealand at 42nd in a list of 52 countries for new EV purchases in 2025, with EVs making up just 8% of new car sales here.

By comparison Norway leads the world, with EVs making up an estimated 97% of new car sales in 2025, while many European countries have topped 50%, and China’s EV market is the largest by volume, with over 13 million EV sales estimated for last year.

Robert McLachlan, distinguished professor in Applied Mathematics at Massey University, who specialises in sustainable transport research, says the chart is striking.

“However it disguises something even worse, our complete reversal since 2023.”

In 2022 New Zealand’s market share for new EVs climbed to 20% in 2022 and reached a high of 27% in 2023.

However in 2024 it dropped back to 11% and descended even further in 2025, following the Government scrapping the Clean Car Discount.

The news comes as research shows that groups supporting efforts to reshape the transport system around low-carbon goals were a minority in meetings with transport ministers over the past five years, with industry advocates instead dominating transport minister’s diaries.

Collapsing market

One of the National Party’s election pledges was to support EV uptake by installing 10,000 new fast chargers by 2030. But experts have blamed the Government for collapsing the EV market by removing incentives to purchase an EV at the same time as introducing new disincentives.

Climate policy experts also predict the government’s move to replace petrol tax with road user charges will lead to more gas guzzlers on our roads and increase climate pollution.

Govt mulls abolishing clean vehicle standard

The government is currently reviewing the Clean Vehicle Standard, and has asked a select group of stakeholders for their thoughts about abolishing the standard entirely.

The Government gutting its standard for clean vehicles was one of its worst acts of ‘climate vandalism’ last year – coming a close runner-up to weakening the country's 2050 methane target and rejecting the Climate Change Commission's advice to strengthen the 2050 target for long-lived gases, according to McLachlan.

McLachlan says New Zealand is falling further and further behind the targets of the Clean Vehicle Standard – despite the government weakening the targets considerably.

And 2026 is off to a poor start for vehicle emissions, with an even wider gap to meet the target of 28 gCO2/km.

“Penalties have been cut from $67.50 to $15/g for 2026-27, making the scheme essentially voluntary. This won't help the industry prepare for tighter standards in 2027-28.”

Vehicles imported in 2025 will emit an extra 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 compared with the target, McLachlan says, costing drivers an extra $1.3 billion in fuel over the life of those vehicles.

NZ could become a dumping ground for dirty vehicles

Last year, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment warned that NZ could become a dumping ground for polluting vehicles.

In its submission on the review of the clean car standard, Drive Electric says that retaining a regulated CO₂ standard for vehicles is “a vital economic and environmental shield” for the country.

“While current market conditions are challenging, the Clean Vehicle Standard (CVS) is the primary mechanism preventing the country from becoming a dumping ground for obsolete, high-emission technology.”

Drive Electric says keeping the standard makes economic sense.

“Modelling shows that weakening or removing the standard would lock New Zealanders into billions of dollars in avoidable fuel costs and increase the national healthcare burden.”

The clean car advocates want to see the standard kept and updated to provide more visible, customer-facing mechanisms at registration “that reinforce the total cost-of-ownership advantage of electric vehicles”.

Drive Electric says that removing the standard is estimated to cost the economy at least NZ$900 million cumulatively. “Families would lose average fuel savings of NZ$6,810 over the life of a vehicle by being forced into less efficient models.”

A lower standard for vehicle emissions also makes NZ an OECD outlier, with a vehicle fleet that is nearly five years older than the UK's and significantly more carbon-intensive.

“With an average vehicle 'exit age' of over 20 years, every high-emission car we allow into the country today creates a two-decade tail of pollution and fuel costs. Without the [clean vehicle standard] as a 'gatekeeper,' we are essentially guaranteeing a failure to meet our 2030 and 2050 climate obligations.”

Drive Electric is urging the Ministry of Transport to maintain the 105g/km target as a minimum baseline as well as aligning New Zealand’s trajectory and penalty rates with Australia’s 2029 targets.