Animal right activists are stepping up their war on Central Park’s horse-drawn carriage industry by riding alongside carriages and pressuring tourists to ditch the buggies for an electric car.

A video posted online shows a recent incident in which the activists convinced a Michigan couple to abandon their carriage ride shortly after it started.

“This is such a cruel industry — our mayor’s trying to ban it,” activist Edita Birnkrant, formerly of Friends of Animals NYC, is seen saying in the clip. “We’re hoping you’ll get out and take this [electric vehicle] instead of supporting animal abuse.”

The activists have been driving around in what they describe as an “eco-friendly vintage car” — the same prototype that was pitched by Mayor Bill de Blasio and the animal rights group NYCLASS as a replacement for the carriage horses.

The online video shows that when the couple agrees to switch, the activists encourage them not pay the carriage driver because they “don’t have to.”

The mayor tried for more than a year to boot the carriages from Central Park after his 2013 campaign benefited from millions of dollars in donations from animal rights activists.

After city lawmakers balked at eliminating an entire industry, de Blasio’s subsequent effort to shrink the number of carriages instead was similarly scuttled last year by the City Council.

Horse carriage drivers say the new tactic started in August but that it’s illegal because the electric car has commercial plates, which means it can’t pick up passengers or be used inside Central Park.

“There’s this half-million-dollar custom car that they’re driving around for no other purpose than to harass us,” said driver and carriage industry spokeswoman Christina Hansen. “They’re accosting people already in carriages and saying, ‘Get out of the carriage.'”

But Birnkrant told The Post that all the proper permits and licenses are in order, and dismissed the industry’s accusations of harassment.

She said the activists are merely educating tourists about an industry that many of them know nothing about — and that people wouldn’t come into the electric car if they felt intimidated.

“This is a tactic we have every right to do and we’ll continue to do and we’re having success — which is why they’re getting so upset about it,” she told The Post.

City officials couldn’t immediately confirm the legality of the electric car’s use, but a Police Department spokesman said the Central Park precinct is aware of the issue and working to address it.