The country's electric vehicle market has slumped to disappointing lows this year and import experts believe they know the reason, saying the vehicles won't be purchased in large numbers without government incentives.

Electric vehicle purchases make up less than 5 per cent of new car sales so far this year, down from 27 per cent last year. Globally there have been impacts on the market, with Tesla also reporting a drop in sales figures.

The market conditions were labelled "disappointing" by the chair of Drive Electric, Kirstin Corson.

"I don't know if [the year is] written off but we've certainly stalled," Corson told Newstalk ZB this morning, addressing the sales slump.

"New light diesel vehicles have outsold EVs by 10 to one, so it's been a massive difference compared to 2023."

When it comes to dissecting why the drop in sales has occurred, Corson agreed with ZB's Mike Hosking that the removal of the Government's clean car discount - which provided thousands of dollars in rebates for people who purchased electric vehicles - was a contributing factor.

"The economists forecasted the same thing - losing the clean car discount was forecasted to reduce EV sales anywhere from $100,000 to $350,000 by 2030, so this was likely to happen," she told ZB.

"You have to have demand-high policies or some sort of incentivisation at this stage because you've got a high capital cost."

Corson said other countries have seen high electric vehicle growth - including Australia and France, while other countries like Germany removed their demand-high policies and had their electric vehicle incentives slip back.

"EVs are still cost-effective if you look at it from a cost-of-ownership [perspective], but I guess this Government is about economic growth and at the moment we've seen Black Rock not investing into EV charging infrastructure - they were committing a billion dollars in investment into New Zealand," said Corson.

"We've seen the likes of Morrisons, one of our big investment infrastructure businesses, saying 'yeah we're going to put 450 million euros of EV infrastructure into France', so we're missing out on economic growth because we haven't got our policy settings right. That's the disappointing aspect as well."

The Vehicle Import Association told Newstalk ZB this morning it's been an "up and down" year for dealerships across the country thus far. December saw a crunch in sales when the government discount was removed.

The association's chief executive, Greig Epps, said the reports back from car yards has been mixed, with some claiming they've been doing better than expected and others admitting they're struggling with their sales.

He said there was a real rush when the incentives were introduced to create demand, but the aftermath of the economic climate was now playing a role in sales falling.

"Electric vehicles are a great vehicle and they're where we're headed, but the impetus to try and get to them was probably a bit too soon for our market," he told The Mike Hosking Breakfast.

"If we don't have the money to spend on the EVs, we're not going to be buying them. It's a very basic concept and EVs are still an expensive proposition."

Epps said when the Government removed the discount, it essentially doomed itself to see the demand for electric vehicles fall.

"That's really telling you that the cost of them is something people will contemplate if they have some help."