We're going on an EV hunt ... don't expect a big one.
Most people looking at Japan today see EVs everywhere and reasonably ask:
“If Japan has hundreds of thousands of EVs on the road, why is it so hard for New Zealand to get second-hand ones – and if prices are dropping here, doesn’t that mean they’re plentiful and cheap to import?”
Short answer: no. Fleet numbers and NZ retail prices are telling you the wrong story.
Below is the longer version.
1. A lot of those “EVs” aren’t what NZ runs on
The headline Japanese figure that’s often quoted – more than 600,000 “EVs” – lumps together:
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Battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and
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Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).
New Zealand’s used-import pathway is almost entirely BEVs. PHEVs are:
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A much smaller export stream,
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Late-model and expensive, and
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Not zero-emission in everyday use.
So the big “EV fleet” number substantially overstates the pool that actually matters for NZ importers.
2. Our supply comes from the past, not from what’s on Japanese roads today
Used imports are typically 7–12 years old. That matters.
For most of 2010–2020, Japan’s plug-in (BEV+PHEV) share was well under 1% of new registrations. Only in the last couple of years has it crept up to around 3–3.5%, and BEVs are the smallest slice of that.
That means:
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The age band we buy from today corresponds to years when Japan sold almost no BEVs at all.
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The “surge” in EV sales over the last two years will not show up in NZ’s second-hand supply in any scale until well into the 2030s.
So a large current Japanese EV fleet does not equal a large current export pipeline for NZ.
3. Fleet counts don’t tell you what’s actually for sale
Fleet statistics count what’s in use, not what’s being de-registered and pushed through auction and export channels.
In Japan:
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BEV owners (including corporates) tend to hold these vehicles longer; most are still in their first ownership cycle.
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That means only a trickle of vehicles reaches the auctions we rely on.
When you look at the auctions – the real supply tap for NZ – you see:
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Very small numbers of BEVs,
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A narrow range of model years, and
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Strong competition from other buying countries.
This is why many reputable NZ EV dealers now lean heavily on NZ-new ex-fleet EVs: Japanese auction volumes alone simply don’t do the job.
4. “But EV prices are falling – doesn’t that mean supply is improving?”
No. Falling used-EV prices in New Zealand are mostly a demand-side story, not a sign that Japan is awash with cheap cars.
Local price movements reflect:
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Cost-of-living pressure and high interest rates,
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Buyer nerves about long-term battery life and resale value, and
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A sense that government enthusiasm for EVs has cooled.
In some small-car segments we’re actually seeing classic saturation dynamics: prices dropping while days-to-sell are rising. Sellers are cutting prices to move stock, not because supply from Japan has suddenly become easy.
5. Shipping is a hidden choke-point
Even if Japan had abundant, affordable used BEVs, we’d still hit a logistics wall.
Right now:
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Only one major shipping line regularly accepts non-Nissan used BEVs for NZ,
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Vessel-owner consortia limit what can be carried because of perceived battery-fire risk, and
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Extra conditions (discharging batteries, model-by-model approval, extra paperwork and handling) add cost and reduce throughput.
So supply is constrained twice: first at the auction, then again at the ship’s ramp.
6. Where this leaves NZ
New Zealand cannot plan its transition as if Japan is a giant EV warehouse we can simply raid at will. The reality is:
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Historic BEV sales in Japan were tiny for most of the period that matters to our used-import pipeline.
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The vehicles that are plentiful in Japan – late-model PHEVs and HEVs – don’t easily translate into affordable used-BEV imports here.
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Auction volumes, battery health concerns, soft local demand and shipping limits all bite at once.
At VIA we’re investing in real-time auction-monitoring tools so that when we talk with officials about the Clean Vehicle Standard and wider decarbonisation policy, we’re working from what’s actually going through the lanes week by week, not just from headline fleet numbers.
If we want families and businesses to keep upgrading into cleaner vehicles, policy needs to reflect this reality: a constrained pipeline of used BEVs from Japan for the rest of this decade, and a continued role for efficient hybrids and other low-emission options while that pipeline slowly builds.
That is the story behind the “EV hunt” – there might be a lot of EVs in Japan, but very few of them are in the parts of the forest we’re actually allowed to pick from.