UTE SALES SLUMP 40PC IN MAY
Clean Car fees continue to hit dirty utes, cars and SUVs at an all-time high
Motor Industry Association (MIA) chief executive David Crawford says that May newvehicle sales were strong given the challenges of “production constraints, weakening market conditions and geopolitical factors”.
Overall, sales of 13,337 were down 8.4 per cent on May 2021. However, registrations of 10,575 passenger cars and SUVs were up
5.6 per cent on the month last year and actually marked the strongest May on record.
The continuing slump in light commercials (a market dominated by utes) accounted for the overall drop: registrations of
2762 were down a whopping 39.2 per cent on 2021 and are “likely to remain subdued in coming months due to the effect of clean car taxes,” says Crawford. “With high fuel prices, increasing costs of living and higher interest rates, sales of new vehicles are expected to progressively soften.”
However, a ute still topped the charts for May: the Toyota Hilux was number one with 942 registrations, followed by the Toyota RAV4 (923) and Mitsubshi Outlander (824).
There were 1391 plug-in vehicles registered in May, split between 762 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and 619 battery electric vehicles (BEVs). The top PHEVs were the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (306), Mitsubishi Outlander (207) and MG HS (69). The top BEVs were the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (102), Kia EV6 (80) and Polestar 2 (77).
Year-to-date, the massive change in the market since the wider Clean Car Discount came into effect on April means smallmedium segments now account for 56 per cent of all sales. However, the cumulative performance of key light commercials prior to April means utes still occupy the top three spots overall for 2022: Ford Ranger, Mitsubishi Triton and Toyota Hilux.