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

New Zealanders registered 1099 new battery electric vehicles in August, more than double the 502 of August last year, with BYD taking the top spot from Tesla in a month the American brand largely sat out.

Plug-in hybrids grew faster still, rising 152% to 1246 from 494, according to NZTA register data. Together the two plug-in categories took 19.6% of the month’s 11,960 new light vehicle registrations, up from 8.8% a year earlier, and 23.9% of new passenger cars. Conventional hybrids added 4066, up 9%, putting some form of battery in more than half of everything registered.

Both plug-in totals were down on July, when 1986 battery electric vehicles and 1469 plug-in hybrids were registered. Distributors 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.

For the first eight months of the year, battery electric registrations reached 12,195, up 150%, and plug-in hybrids 9186, up 108%.

BYD leads, Tesla waits for September

BYD registered 224 battery electric vehicles to lead the make table, ahead of MG on 118, built on the S5 with 69 and the MG 4 with 37, 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, Farizon, Leapmotor and GAC each between 21 and 32.

Tesla’s 88 registrations, 81 of them Model Ys, reflect its pattern of concentrating deliveries at the end of each quarter. The brand recorded 412 in July. The Model Y still finished second on the model table behind the BYD Atto 3 on 107.

Toyota’s fourth place was built almost entirely on the bZ4X, with 49 standard cars and 28 of the bZ4X Touring wagon, a combined 77 that put it 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.

Kia registered just 20 battery electric vehicles in August, before rising to 246 in September. Only 26 of the month’s battery electric vehicles were registered for rental use.

RAV4 dominates plug-in hybrids

Toyota’s 484 plug-in hybrids, all of them RAV4s, made the RAV4 New Zealand’s best-selling plug-in vehicle of any kind by a wide margin, with 39% of all plug-in hybrid registrations.

BYD followed on 204, including 93 Shark 6 utes alongside the Sealion 6, 8 and 5, then GWM on 126, Chery on 100, Jaecoo on 68 with the J7, and Geely on 49, all of them Starray EM-i. Denza’s 33 and Forthing’s 26 came next, with Mitsubishi on 25, 22 of them Outlanders.

A further 38 Leapmotor range-extender models were registered, 33 of them C10s. These use a petrol engine as a generator and are not counted in the battery electric or plug-in hybrid totals.

Used imports double

Used import battery electric registrations rose to 317 in August, from 159 a year earlier. Japan supplied 302 of them, with 10 from Hong Kong and five from Australia.

The Nissan Leaf accounted for 212, up from 119, most of them built between 2018 and 2022. Tesla added 33 used Model 3s and 16 Model Ys, and BYD 10 used Seals.

For the first eight months of the year, 2619 used battery electric vehicles have been registered, up 136% on the 1109 of the same period in 2025. The Leaf took 1768 of them.

Used plug-in hybrids rose to 104 from 61, led by the Mitsubishi Outlander on 44, the Toyota RAV4 on 25 and the Prius on 13. Battery electric and plug-in hybrid models together took 5.2% of used passenger imports, up from 3%.

Our September EV registrations story covers the following month.