Trade Me Motors reports EV interest spike

Trade Me Motors says online interest in its electric vehicle listings spiked massively on the day the transport minister Michael Wood announced the new clean car discount policy.

The newly announced clean car subsidy on new and unregistered imported used electric vehicles which is from July 1, appears to have ignited the interest of Kiwi car buyers.   

Head of Trade Me Motors Jeremy Wade told Stuff that views of electric vehicles jumped 264% in comparison to the day before the announcement, and, that views of hybrid vehicles jumped 67%.

He says the watch list for electric vehicles increased massively by 290% and the watch list for hybrids jumped up by 82%.

In the last seven days Trade Me Motors says there have been more than 21,600 searches for electric vehicles, a 454% increase on the previous corresponding period.

Wade says Trade Me has seen searches for hybrid vehicles increase by 72% in the past seven days compared to the prior corresponding period, and searches for Tesla and Nissan Leaf have increased by 83% and 175% respectively.

However, Wade says searches for petrol and diesel cars have not declined. 

He says there’s been a small increase in ute searches of 3% and ‘diesel’ searches have gone up 24%, possibly indicating Kiwis are trying to buy such a vehicle before the clean car fee takes effect on January 1, 2022.