A high-flying businessman who attempted to pull off a $400,000 electric-vehicle scam has been sentenced to home detention in a Dunedin court. 

Hamish Ian Gardyne – former owner of HVS Motors – appeared in the Dunedin District Court this afternoon after pleading guilty to using a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage, a charge carrying a seven-year maximum jail term. 

Judge David Robinson imposed a term of nine and a half months’ home detention and 200 hours’ community work, revoking the defendant’s name suppression in the process.

In March, the judge rejected an application for a discharge without conviction despite acknowledging the impact on the defendant, his family and businesses would “catastrophic”. 

As a result of the conviction, the Gardyne’s vehicle-trading registration will be automatically cancelled and he will be barred from such work for five years. 

Rather than sentence him earlier in the year, the judge delayed it by six months to allow him time to sell the business. 

There was no indication of whether that had occurred but counsel Mai Chen said the adjournment had been “very helpful”. 

Judge Robinson said Gardyne’s bid to exploit the clean-vehicle rebate scheme was “out and out fraud” and to allow him to continue trading would lead to a lack of public confidence in the justice system. 

HVS Motors which grew to become one of the largest import sales companies in the country. 

Gardyne, who grew up on a sheep and cropping farm in Gore, told the Otago Daily Times in a 2021 interview about starting his first business at 19 before beginning HVS. 

It began with an office, a workshop and seven staff in his hometown before rapidly expanding to three branches and 40 employees, which Gardyne called “pretty reckless growth”, later taking a large portion of the South Island’s market share. 

A New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) summary of facts outlined how the defendant imported 10,050 vehicles between 2019 and 2023, 1380 of which were Nissan Leaf electric cars. 

Under the Clean Car Rebate Scheme owners can apply for cash back on the condition the vehicle is not sold or offered for sale within three months of registration, or if it is used as a demonstration vehicle. 

In March 2023, Gardyne registered 119 Nissan Leafs and completed the paperwork for a rebate of $410,550. 

He was paid only a single sum of $3450 because applications had to be made for each individual vehicle. 

Within days, the court heard, Gardyne had made arrangements to ship 45 of the cars to Hobart, and in April he organised for a second haul of 45 to head across the Tasman. 

Meanwhile, he contacted NZTA requesting an update on his rebate application, which had not yet been processed. 

“In total, 90 vehicles contained within the declaration . . . were sold and shipped to Australia by Mr Gardyne within three months of being registered,” court documents said. 

When he was interviewed by the NZTA on May 11 that year, he stated the “vast majority” of the 119 cars were in Christchurch, Invercargill and Dunedin and though he did not know specifically where they were, he said his staff would. 

The cars were being used as “demonstrator vehicles”, Gardyne claimed – loaned to members of the public for free for a week as part of a special promotion. 

The defendant told the NZTA he had an oversupply of the vehicles and they would be sold at the end of the three-month period. 

Judge Robinson said those statements were “misleading”. 

In September 2023, Gardyne repaid the $3450 – the only rebate he had received – and, through his lawyer, withdrew all other applications. 

Prosecutor Ben Finn said the crime was driven by greed. 

“This was a deliberate attempt to take advantage of and defraud this rebate scheme,” he said. 

“Mr Gardyne knew what he was doing was fraud . . . It was fraud, plain and simple, from the start.” 

While Gardyne had no previous convictions, Mr Finn stressed a traffic history that stretched to “some pages”. 

The judge accepted it suggested a “cavalier approach to road safety” but did not detract from the defendant’s character. 

Ms Chen stressed her client had done 90 hours of voluntary work since December, which was an extension of his and his wife’s longstanding efforts in the community. 

“They’re very young and they’ve given a lot of money and a lot of time,” she said. “They’ve done a lot of good work in their very young lives.” 

In a statement, Gardyne said he had pleaded guilty to shield his family from the threat of him being imprisoned. 

However, he said he did not accept NZTA’s version of events and would “pursue legal avenues” against what he called “heavy-handed enforcement”.