Owners of light electric vehicles will soon need to buy a road user licence, under new rules coming into effect today

Road user charges -- paid by most motorists when they buy fuel -- will now apply to EVs, as well as light diesel vehicles and trucks.

EV drivers have until the end of May to get their first RUC licence and buy their first pre-paid unit of one-thousand kilometers in road user charges.

It'll set back a Tesla owner 76 dollars for every thousand kilometres driven, and a plug-in hybrid EV will pay 38-dollars.

Police can issue an infringement notice for vehicles without a valid RUC licence, and those that lie about their mileage can be fined.