{"id":343757,"date":"2026-03-23T13:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343757\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T13:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:56:14","slug":"government-announces-50-million-in-loans-to-expand-ev-charging-stations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343757\/","title":{"rendered":"Government announces $50 million in loans to expand EV charging stations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishop said the average loan per charge point is $20,000. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut once repayments are factored in, the net cost to the Crown is around $10,000 per charger, roughly a quarter of what a direct grant would cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also changing our planning rules to make the installation of public EV chargers a permitted activity under the RMA, meaning in most cases no consent is required.\u201d<\/p>\n

DC fast chargers deliver power directly to the battery and can charge a car in 20 to 60 minutes, making them suited to highways and destinations where people stop briefly. <\/p>\n

AC chargers are slower and better suited to places where cars are parked for longer periods, like shopping centres, workplaces and residential areas.<\/p>\n

Bishop said half the new chargers would be spread across Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, the Wellington region, Christchurch and Dunedin. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe other half throughout the regions, so drivers outside the main centres will benefit too.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to government figures, New Zealand has roughly 1800 public charging points \u2013 the lowest charger-to-EV ratios in the OECD.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother 161 charge points are also in progress,\u201d Bishop said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCombined with the investment being announced today, the national total will be around 4550.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April last year, the Government announced plans to increase the number of public charging stations to 10,000 by 2030.<\/a><\/p>\n

Since the start of the war in Iran and increasing fuel insecurity, electric-vehicle sales have jumped by up to 50%.<\/p>\n

\"TransportTransport Minister Chris Bishop. Photo \/ Marika Khabazi, RNZ<\/p>\n

EV City owner Dave Boot said sales of electric vehicles at his Christchurch business had increased by at least half this month compared with February, while Auckland\u2019s ACEV director Greg Larsen said his firm\u2019s EV sales were up about 30%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d typically sell 40 [EVs] a month, but we\u2019re close to that already for the month\u201d, Boot said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Penrose-based GVI owner Hayden Johnston said interest in EVs had \u201cramped up this week in particular\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen a 30% increase in inquiries … for anyone that was staying on the fence, this [Middle East] situation has given them the push.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bishop said the average loan per charge point is $20,000. \u201cBut once repayments are factored in, the net…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13212,2840,696,694,138,78469,38143,8609,18930,11598,266,78,29651,10527,1132,130,111,139,4061,69,3109,12418,131,61,80],"class_list":["post-343757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-13212","tag-across","tag-announced","tag-announces","tag-business","tag-chargers","tag-charging","tag-double","tag-ev","tag-expand","tag-government","tag-in","tag-interestfree","tag-loans","tag-million","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-public","tag-stations","tag-than","tag-to","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}