The final day of New Zealand’s General Election voting on Saturday will likely also be a milestone for the new-vehicle industry. The Motor Industry Association (MIA) has been attributing “soft” sales to pre-election uncertainly for months, especially as the result will have a major bearing on the future of the Clean Car Discount.
Registrations for September were just 10,909: 26.7 per cent lower than September last year, 20 per cent lower than the monthly average for 2022 and 12.4 per cent lower than the monthly average for 2023.
According to MIA chief executive Aimee Wiley: “Such uncertainty [around the election] considerably impacted consumer demand. It comes as no surprise that product attracting rebates accelerated significantly, while demand for product attracting fees slumped.”
The top three models for the month were the Tesla Model Y (697), Toyota RAV4 (683) and Ford Ranger (605).
"It comes as no surprise that product attracting rebates accelerated significantly, while demand for product attracting fees slumped”
The battery electric vehicle (BEV) segment jumped from an average of 13.9 per cent to 24.9 per cent market share in September. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) jumped from 6.7 to 9.7 per cent, while hybrids increased from 19.3 to 26.9 per cent.
Toyota led the market overall with 24.2 per cent share, followed by Ford (10.3 per cent) and Mitsubishi (9.2 per cent).
NZ’S TOP 10 NEW VEHICLES YEAR-TO-DATE
Ford Ranger (7833)
Toyota Hilux (6857)
Toyota RAV4 (5798)
Suzuki Swift (3152)
Tesla Model Y (2895)
Mitsubishi Triton (2887)
Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (2687)
MG ZS (2628)
Mitsubishi Outlander (2616)
BYD Atto 3 (2159)