Source: Radio New Zealand
Meridian said some customer plans were changing.
Some Meridian customers have complained of increases in the cost of the power they use for their electric vehicles – but interest in electric cars overall is booming.
A number of EV owners have taken to social media to question increases in the power company’s Electric Vehicle Power Plan.
One was told that when his plan renewed on 1 May he would be put on a new fixed rate plan, which would mean more than 50 percent increases on the day and night rates, and a 30 percent increase on the daily fixed charge.
Another said the increase could add hundreds to his monthly power bill.
Meridian said some customer plans were changing.
“Our EV plan offers a fixed rate for two years and we recently communicated with some customers whose term is coming to an end about their new offer. As you know, beyond our own costs there have also been substantial increases from lines and distribution networks over the last couple of years and this is another flow-on effect of that.”
Mike Casey, chief executive of Rewiring Aotearoa, said he had been contacted by people about the changes, too.
“What is driving these increasing costs is probably not actually Meridian themselves, but the cost to transport the electrons or the power from the power plants all the way to your home, and that’s namely the poles and wires.
“What we’ve seen very recently is the Commerce Commission allowing for much higher expenditure and much higher charging of customers for the maintenance and the growth of our poles and wire network in New Zealand.”
He said it would have been nice if the power company had “read the room a little bit” in the context of fuel prices increasing quickly.
“We have a really big opportunity here to convert a lot of drivers over to electric, and the news that energy into electric vehicles is also going up isn’t really what we want to be hearing right now.
“We want to be trying to encourage as many drivers into electric vehicles as possible because they will save a lot of money.
“The key thing here is even with the prices going up, the savings potential is absolutely huge. All this increase in Meridian’s prices are absolutely dwarfed by what’s going on the fossil fuel market at the moment, so I hope that New Zealanders, even though they see price rises on both options, that they realise how small one price rise is compared to the other price rise at the moment.”
He said charging an electric vehicle off the normal grid would cost the equivalent of about $1.50 a litre. “If you charge an electric vehicle off your rooftop with your solar, you’re probably paying close to $1.15 a litre … compared to what $3.30, $3.50 a litre, whatever it might be at the moment, you can see there’s still incredible savings by going electric.”
Westpac New Zealand managing director of institutional and business banking Reuben Tucker said demand for electric vehicles through the bank’s greater choices home loan top up and other loans for electric vehicles had soared.
“In the last two weeks the number of applications for EVs through these products has roughly doubled,” he said.
“We’re the only bank to offer interest-free lending on EVs and chargers, which is a key way we can help customers manage higher living costs not just now but in case of future events.”
Trade Me said people were also motivated to look for ways to become independent with their homes.
Searches for “off-grid” properties were up 68 percent year-on-year in the last month.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
LiveNews: https://livenews.co.nz/2026/03/25/ev-owners-complain-of-50-percent-power-price-increases/