EV registrations more than double in August as BYD takes top spot from Tesla

New Zealanders registered 1,101 battery electric vehicles in August, more than double the 505 recorded a year earlier, with BYD taking the top spot from Tesla in a month the American brand largely sat out.

Plug-in hybrids grew faster still, with 1,248 registrations against 494 in August 2025, a rise of 153%, according to preliminary NZTA registration data seen by EVs and Beyond. Together the two plug-in categories took 19.6% of the month’s 11,983 passenger, ute and van registrations, up from 8.8% a year earlier. Conventional hybrids added 4,020, up 9.4%, putting some form of battery in 53% of everything registered.

Both plug-in totals were down on July, when the Motor Industry Association counted 1,195 battery electric and 1,479 plug-in hybrid registrations. Distributors have told our sister outlet AutoTalk that typhoon activity around Shanghai delayed vessel departures during August, holding back the Chinese brands that supply most of the market’s EVs, and BYD’s record shipment landed after the month closed.

BYD leads, Tesla waits for September

BYD registered 225 battery electric vehicles to lead the make table, ahead of MG on 118, built on the S5 with 69, the MG 4 with 37 and the S6 with 10, then Tesla on 88 and Toyota on 86. Geely followed on 63, Dongfeng on 61, Jaecoo on 51, GWM on 46 and BMW on 41, with Zeekr, Mini, XPeng and Farizon each in the 20s and 30s.

Tesla’s 88 registrations, 81 of them Model Ys, reflect its pattern of concentrating deliveries at the end of each quarter rather than a fall in demand: the brand recorded 412 in July and 908 in June, and September’s figure will be the one to read. The Model Y still finished second on the model table behind the BYD Atto 3 on 107.

Toyota’s fourth place is built almost entirely on the bZ4X, with 49 standard cars and 28 of the new bZ4X Touring wagon, a combined 77 that puts the once-slow seller third among battery electric models. The MG S5 followed on 69, then BYD’s Sealion 7 on 56, the Jaecoo J5 on 51, GWM’s Ora on 46, the Geely EX5 on 42, the MG 4 on 37, the BMW iX3 on 35, the Zeekr 7X on 31, the Atto 2 on 30 and the Dongfeng Box on 29.

Further down the table, the month recorded the first 15 Arcfox T1s ahead of the brand’s September launch, 13 Honda Super-Ones, seven Cadillac Lyriqs and five Polestars. Hyundai registered five battery electric vehicles and Kia 20, most of them EV5s.

RAV4 dominates plug-in hybrids

Toyota’s 485 plug-in hybrids, effectively all RAV4 PHEVs, made the RAV4 New Zealand’s best-selling plug-in vehicle of any kind by a wide margin, accounting for 39% of all plug-in hybrids and more than half of the 886 RAV4s registered in the month.

BYD followed on 204, a figure that includes 93 Shark 6 utes alongside the Sealion 6, 8 and 5 SUVs, then GWM on 126, Chery on 100, Jaecoo on 68 with the J7, and Geely on 50, all of them Starray EM-i. Denza’s 33 and Forthing’s 26 came next, with Mitsubishi’s Outlander PHEV, once the segment’s default choice, recording 25.

The Shark 6 was also the fourth best-selling ute outright behind the Hilux, Ranger and Triton, and BYD’s combined 429 registrations across all powertrains placed it sixth among all brands, a position its planned 15 models in 18 months is designed to improve on.

The figures are preliminary and will be revised when the MIA and NZTA publish final August data. AutoTrader’s August top-sellers list carries the full model rankings across all powertrains.