Winners and losers Dec 23
As predicted the end of the Clean Car Discount created some significant distortions to the new vehicle market registrations with rebate earning cars storming ahead and those vehicles suffering a surcharge having a sales hiatus
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Data from NZ Transport Agency show new passenger vehicle sales for in December 2023 stood at 8,559 – up 0.8% from December 2022 and does represent the highest result for the month since 1976.
Cumulatively the overall volume for 2023 saw a total of ?110,673 passenger vehicle registrations which ?is down 5% or 5,767 vehicles below the 2022 volume. However, it is still the third highest annual total on record.
Obviously, the total is supported by sales of clean power train cars which were those that attracted the final rebates of the Clean Car Act and therefore had electric or hybrid power trains
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For commercial vehicles with the imminent reduction of the Clean Car Act Surcharge buyers stood their ground if they could and as a result the sales numbers were depressed ?with just 1,204 units delivered. This figure was the lowest for 12 year and down 63.8% year on year.
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Overall 2023 saw 38,582 commercials being registered which was ?the lowest total since 2014. This volume marked a 20.5% reduction or 9,942 units fewer than last year.
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A large proportion of the lost sales will be caught up in January and February when the same vehicles will lose their Clean Car Act Surcharge. Accordingly, the commercial market is expected to bounce back significantly over the next two month. Hopefully now that the political fiscal interference is over for now at least the market can be restored to what passes as normality and that the wide fluctuations seen for car and commercial sales will no longer distort the market and have adverse impacts on cash flow ?and dealer stocking policies.
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The vehicle make statistics are interesting reading as well, with hybrid and EV-lead brands making the most of the last month of the rebate.
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BYD may have over taken Tesla as the global lead car manufacturer but it was another Chinese brand that achieved best selling car status in December – the all-electric MG4 was the top model for the month – both for passenger and overall. This marks the first time a Chinese-made vehicle under a Chinese-owned brand has topped another category. Tesla sold a total of 558 cars in December across its Y and 3 ranges but neither made the top 5 individually
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There were 1,501 registrations to rental companies in December ?compared to 4,466 in November
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Toyota achieved market leadership in 2023 followed by Ford, then Mitsubishi and Kia
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The most popular vehicle body shape is of course the ubiquitous SUV accounting for 57% of all vehicles sold
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The impact of the now defunct Clean Car Act is demonstrated by the analysis of sales by Powertrain
Some 41% of vehicles had some aspect of their powertrain electrified with 15% pure BEVs
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Used Vehicle registrations
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As the Car rebate was also available on newly imported vehicles December saw a year-on-year boom in the registrations of rebate qualifying used imported vehicles.
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12,806 used imported vehicles were registered in December 2023, up from 6,890 units registered December 2022. Market leader for new was also market leader for used with Toyota heading the import charts in December 2023 with 7,067 registrations. This was followed by Nissan (2089), Mazda (914), Honda (693), Mitsubishi (507), Subaru (410), Suzuki (193), BMW (187), Lexus (172), and Volkswagen (151).
For the year Toyota was the used imported vehicle market leader with 51,121 registrations. In second was Nissan (16,817) then Mazda (13,138),? Honda (7903),? Subaru (6027), Mitsubishi (3359), Volkswagen (3256), Suzuki (2869), BMW (2837) and Audi (1839).
A total of 114,922 second-hand cars were registered, marking an increase of 3.8% from the 110,758 recorded in 2022.
Used imported commercials
?Unsurprisingly, December 2023 saw a 20% decrease year-on-year in registrations of used imported commercials. In 2023, Toyota remained the used import commercial market leader with 2,740 registrations followed by Nissan (1303), Hino (405), Isuzu Trucks (375), Mitsubishi Fuso (313), Ford (173),? Daihatsu (101), UD Trucks (63), Suzuki (62) and Holden (61).
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