Since fuel prices spiked in March, New Zealanders buying new vehicles privately have moved to fully electric models in big numbers. Businesses haven’t followed the same trend.
Drive Electric analysed NZTA new vehicle registrations from October 2025 to October 2026, split by whether the buyer was an individual or a company.
- Private buyers’ fully electric share of new light vehicles rose from about 7% (October 2025 to February 2026) to about 24% (March to October 2026), peaking at 32% in September.
- Businesses’ fully electric share peaked at 14% in March, then eased back to 5.8% in October, about where it was a year earlier.
- Before March, businesses bought most new fully electric vehicles. Since then, private buyers have bought around 60% of them.
Businesses buy nearly two in three new light vehicles in New Zealand, and today’s fleet vehicles become tomorrow’s used cars. Drive Electric will look further into what is holding businesses back.
Source: NZTA Motor Vehicle Register, new light vehicles up to 3,500kg (cars, vans, utes and goods vans), October 2025 to October 2026. “Businesses” refers to NZTA’s “Company” owner type, which also includes rental, lease and dealer-registered vehicles.
