Despite the Government announcing its Clean Car Discount programme for sub-$80k EVs on June 13, to start on July 1, the Motor Industry Association (MIA) says Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV, pure-electric) sales remained "reasonably strong" throughout June, although there was a "slight reduction" in Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs).
There were 342 BEVs and 52 PHEVs registered in June, compared with 290/120 respectively for May.
Year to date there are 1641 BEVs registered, compared with the same period last year when there were only 611. Many of the June total from the second half of the month would have been models priced over $80k, and therefore not eligible for the coming rebate.
Hybrid vehicles are not eligible for rebates until January 1 (along with other low-emissions vehicles) and so petrol-electric sales remained strong at 1113 for the month.
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In the mainstream new-vehicle market, June 2021 overall registrations were 15,135 units compared to 11,514 units for June 2020. Year-to-date the market is up 57.7 per cent (31,000 units) compared with the Covid 19-affected first six months of 2020. The month of June is the third largest on record and the first six months of 2021 is the strongest on record.
MIA chief executive David Crawford says that June 2021 sales of new vehicles still reflects current market opportunities and constraints.
"As has been the case for the year to date, the market continues to be logistically challenging with worldwide shipping capacity still a long way off pre-Covid-19 levels and manufacturers still grappling with a worldwide shortage of semi-conductor chips.
"Within these constraints the New Zealand market, year to date, continues to perform exceptionally well."
The top three models for the month of June were the Ford Ranger (912 units), followed by the Mitsubishi ASX (740 units, part of an all-time record month for the Japanese brand) with the Toyota Hilux in third place (632 units).
Toyota remains overall market leader with 14 per cent market share (2153 units), followed closely by Mitsubishi also with 14 per cent (2119 units) and Ford in third spot with 8 per cent (1272 units).
Mitsubishi was the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 14 per cent share (1415) followed by Toyota with 12 per cent (1284 units) and then Kia with 10 per cent (1019 units).
The top selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Mitsubishi ASX (740) followed by the Toyota RAV4 (487) and Mitsubishi Outlander (408).
Ford regained the commercial segment market lead with 22 per cent share (1071) followed by Toyota with 18 per cent (869 units) and Mitsubishi with 15 per cent (704).
The top segment for June 2021 was SUV Compact with 25 per cent share, followed by Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 with 17 per cent and then SUV Medium with 15 per cent.