NZ Sales: Electric vehicle sales run out of charge

NEW ZEALAND’S new-vehicle registration figures have been released for January showing a 1.3 per cent increase over the year prior to a total of 12,649 units.

The January figures, released today by New Zealand’s Motor Industry Association, note that the main shift down in volumes has been for EVs, no longer subsided by the New Zealand government’s recently abolished Clean Car Discount.

There were just 244 new EVs fitted with registration plates for the first time in January (representing a 3.0 per cent share of the market), down from January 2023 when 1211 (13.1 per cent) were registered.

Plug-in hybrids are also down in volume, from 495 (5.3 per cent market share) last year to 202 (2.5 per cent market share) this January.

The top three EVs models in New Zealand’s January tally were the BYD Seal (31 units, 12.7 per cent share), followed by Tesla Model Y (25 units, 10.2 per cent share) and finally Toyota’s new BEV, the bZ4X (23 units, 9.4 per cent share).

Contrasting sharply with the EV and PHEV fortunes were Light Commercial Vehicles. LCVs had a strong month, with January registrations of 3793 units, almost three times higher than the number freshly registered in January 2023 (1322 units).

Light passenger registrations of 8,120 (which includes SUVs) is 12.4 per cent down (1154 units) over January 2023 and 9.0 per cent (805 units) lower than January 2022.

Toyota led light passenger registrations with 1632 units and 20.1 per cent market share, followed by Mitsubishi with 1144 units registered and 14.1 per cent market share and in third was Kia with 828 units and 10.2 per cent market share.

The most popular light passenger vehicles in New Zealand last month were the Toyota RAV4, with 619 copies registered, followed by the Mitsubishi ASX at 438 units and in third came the Mitsubishi Outlander with 431 units.

The segmentation in Light Passenger Vehicles was led by SUV medium with 2771 units (21.9 per cent share), followed by SUV compact with 2437 units (19.3 per cent share) and SUV Large with 1311 units (10.4 per cent share of Light Passenger).

The small to medium segments comprised 50.4 per cent of Light Passenger Vehicles registered.

Meanwhile, Ford kept its the market lead in the LCV segment for January with 41.2 per cent market share (1563 units) followed by Toyota with 25.1 per cent (953 units) and Mitsubishi third with 8.7 per cent market share (330 units).

The biggest volume of new registrations in LCVs were the Ford Ranger (1470 units), followed by Toyota’s Hilux (657 units), and finally the Mitsubishi Triton (330 units).

In the LCV segment, just eight BEV utes were registered in January.

In the Heavy Commercial Vehicles segment, the January registrations of 736 are a big bump up from January 2023 (245 units) and higher than this segment could achieve back in January 2022, where 279 units hit the road for work duties.

January 2024 is the third best month and the best January result on record for this segment.

Heavy Commercial BEV registrations were low but did better than the LCV segment, with a total of 22 new units registered in January.

The top three overall market leaders in January 2024 were Toyota with 20.4 per cent market share (2586 units), followed by Ford with 16.2 per cent (2047 units) and Mitsubishi with 11.7 per cent (1474 units).

The January registrations breakdown favoured Light Passenger vehicles with 8120 units sold, followed by Light Commercial with 3793 and Heavy Commercial totalled 736 units for the month.

When parsed as total Industry sales according to motive power, January’s new vehicle registrations went this way: 274 Battery Electric Vehicles (2.2 per cent share), 202 Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (1.6 per cent share), 2366 Hybrids (18.7 per cent share) and 9807 Internal Combustion Engine vehicles (77.5 per cent share).

The overall top three most popular individual segments for new-vehicle registrations in New Zealand’s January tally were firstly the SUV Medium segment with 21.9 per cent share, followed by Pick up/Chassis Cab 4x4 with 20.4 per cent of the market while SUV Compacts were third with a market share of 19.3 per cent.

Top 10 sales by Make (January passenger, SUV and commercial):

Top 10 sales by Model (January passenger and SUV):

Top 10 sales by Model (January commercial):

*All figures are supplied courtesy of the Motor Industry Association of New Zealand.