EV imports up

About 310 electric vehicles were among 26,700 cars imported in November, helping push the value of total imports for the month to a record $5.8 billion.

The value of car imports reached a new high of $513 million, Statistics NZ says.

The month’s imported EVs comprised 140 new and 170 used, driving total EV registrations to over 6000.

November’s value of total imports beat October’s $5.4b record.

Imports rose $1.2b (27%) from November 2016. This was the largest rise in imports since a 62% rise in December 1999.

“The $1.2 billion rise in total November 2017 imports was equivalent to 83,000 used electric cars,” international statistics manager Tehseen Islam says. “Alternatively, for that value we could have imported around 700,000 top-of-the-line mobile phones.”

It was not only vehicles which contributed to November’s rise. Some of the largest increases included diggers, aircraft, aircraft parts and computers.

Exports rose $757 million (20%) to $4.6 billion, a new high for a November. This was the largest percentage rise in export values since January 2014, which also featured high dairy prices.