The Government is being urged to change policies to encourage the use of electric vehicles.
A specialist in energy, natural resources and environmental law at Waikato University, Barry Barton, said research suggested people were deterred by the price of electric vehicles.
Professor Barton said that could be overcome with retrospective payments to reward environmental good behaviour.
That price support was rated according to emissions and was paid once, but it could be spread across annual registrations of a vehicle, as happened in France.
New Zealand has 1000 electric vehicles.