Small cars start to shine in sales boom

As fuel costs soar to record levels, more people are turning to small cars,

THE rising cost of fuel seems to be boosting market interest in small cars. That’s the word from Motor Industry Association (MIA) boss David Crawford following a record August for newvehicle sales.

Defying talk of reduced business confidence, a record 13,200 new vehicles were registered in New Zealand last month. With that tally, yeartodate newvehicle sales reached 105,681, an increase of 1758 (1.7%) on the first eight months of 2017.

Most of the yeartodate increase was due to a further surge in light commercial vehicle sales, up 3.3% on the same time last year.

While SUVs continue to dominate the newvehicle market — accounting for over twothirds of passenger car sales and over 40 of total newvehicle sales so far this year — interest in smaller cars has started to pick up.

However, the overall dominance of light commercials and SUVs is highlighted by the fact that only two conventional cars — the Toyota Corolla and Suzuki Swift — feature among this year’s top 10 selling new vehicles.

The topthree spots on the new model sales charts are held by the Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux and Holden Colorado, while the Toyota RAV4, Mazda CX5 and Kia Sportage are battling it out for topselling SUV honours.

Toyota leads the way in sales by brand, ahead of Ford, Holden, Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan. Hyundai, Kia, Suzuki round out the top 10 for 2018 so far, followed by Honda, Subaru, MercedesBenz, Isuzu and LDV.

Used importvehicles sales have slipped from 2017’s record levels, but are still tracking towards the secondbest result for any other year since 2005 for passenger vehicles, and since 2006 for commercials.