New Zealand has reached a “tipping point” with more people switching to electric cars and solar as Meridian Energy’s weekly app registrations increase by 214 percent, it says.

Rising oil prices have put pressure on prices across New Zealand, pushing an upward trend and interest in EV alternative vehicles.

Waka Kotahi data shows monthly registrations of full battery EVs last month jumped nearly four-fold from recent levels, from an average of 800 a month in the last two years, to 3100.

Registrations of plug-in hybrid vehicles almost tripled.

Meridian’s head of energy, Richard Sanford, said there has been a significant jump over the past four weeks.

“The last month has definitely seen a boost in interest towards EVs and home solar.

“It does feel like a tipping point, as more and more Kiwis see how moving away from a reliance on fossil fuels – where they can – would make financial sense.”

He said Meridian had long believed in what EV’s could offer to the country and was encouraged by the new interest.

Certain areas were seeing more interest than others.

“Across our Zero network we’ve seen a 16 percent increase in users and 20 percent increase in sessions over the last month, with the three most popular charging stations on the Zero network being Auckland Airport, Twizel and Culverden.

“That continues a trend towards more EV uptake, with our weekly app registrations increasing by 214 percent and weekly active users by 80 percent over the last six months.”

Sandford said Meridian was continuing to invest in EV public charging sites.

There are currently just over 1800 public charge points in New Zealand with more on the way according to the government.

In March, Transport Minister Chris Bishop and Energy and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced the number of electric vehicle (EV) public chargers around New Zealand would more than double thanks to $52.7 million in zero-interest loans from the government and co-investment from ChargeNet and Meridian.

He said New Zealand had one of the lowest charger-to-EV ratios in the OECD.

With the new investment the national total would be around 4550.

“The government is working towards 10,000 charge points by 2030, roughly one for every 40 EVs,” Bishop said.

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