On 27 April 2025, Hon Chris Bishop and Hon Simon Watts announced the Government is updating the way it co-invests in public EV chargers with the private sector to accelerate the delivery of EV chargers across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Mr Watts says, “Since 2016, government investment in EV chargers has consisted of direct grants… The Government is moving to a more sophisticated, commercial procurement model. We have set aside up to $68.5 million in currently held grant funding, to provide concessionary loans to private operators to co-invest in public EV charging infrastructure. Loans will be quicker to implement and will help achieve the Government’s objectives with less complexity, cost and risk.”

Drive Electric sees the announcement as a postive step in the right direction and shows the Government is continuing its investment and commitment to 10,000 public chargers across Aotearoa New Zealand by 2030.

There are 1,349 operational charge points across the country. In order to meet the Government’s goal of 10,000 public chargers by 2030, installations will need to increase from approximately 20 per month to 125.

Drive Electric board chair, Kirsten Corson who discussed the issue RNZ, Newstalk ZB and the TVNZ breakfast show on 28 April, says, “We hope that will be successful, but there is more that needs to be done. We can’t rely on that.”

Funding alone will not solve the infrastructure challenges in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the UK, there are six line companies; in Australia, there are typically one or two per state. Aotearoa New Zealand, by comparison, has 29. Each company has “…different processes, different pricing and CPOs don’t have visibility on the network capacity” says Corson.

Since 2023, the Drive Electric CPO Subgroup has been addressing industry-wide barriers to investment that are curtailing the roll-out of charging infrastructure at pace and scale. Click here to learn more about the group, their work and the other barries the Goverment could remove to speed up installation.