Electrified vehicles break 10pc of NZ new-car market
... but Mitsubishi is the really big winner, with the top SUV and ute overall
Electrified vehicles cracked 10 percent of total new-car sales in New Zealand for January, with 470 Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), 208 Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) and 828 hybrids among the overall total of 13,514 registrations.
The top BEVs were the Hyundai Kona Electric (78), Hyundai Ioniq 5 (59) and BMW i (42, which includes the range of i-badged models).
Burgeoning newcomer MG charged to the top of PHEV sales with the HS (53), followed by the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (46) and Kia Sorento (20).
The top hybrid was the Honda Jazz (149), followed by Toyota’s Yaris (87) and RAV4 (77).
But the other big mover was Mitsubishi, which had the top-selling passenger vehicle for the month (Outlander, 1188 units) and the top commercial (Triton, 1118). They were number one and number two overall for the month, with three Mitsubishi models in the top 10 (the other was the ASX at number nine).
Mitsubishi was also the top brand overall with 25 per cent market share, followed by Ford (21 per cent) and Toyota (15 per cent).
Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford says the market is “solid, despite stock levels remaining low. Recent shipments of new vehicles have helped to alleviate some of the long wait lists for popular models, while other brands suffered from supply constraints”. The overall market is down slightly (2.73 per cent) on January last year.