NZ sales: New Tesla Model 3 sparks NZ sales

THE arrival of shipments of Tesla’s all-electric Model 3 along with strong sales of rental vehicles helped to boost the New Zealand automotive market into positive territory in September, up 4.2 per cent on the same month last year to 14,524 units.

The new Tesla achieved 359 registrations for the month, placing it third on the passenger-car sales ladder behind Toyota’s Corolla (1011 units) and Yaris (432).

When light-commercial vehicles are added into the mix, the Model 3 still ranked seventh, becoming the first electric vehicle to take a top-10 place in any month.

According to the NZ Motor Industry Association (MIA), 500 pure EV cars were sold in September, along with 105 plug-in hybrid vehicles.

So far this year, 1406 new pure-electric vehicles have been registered in NZ, compared with 768 units for the whole of 2018.

Despite this, year-to-date vehicle sales are still lagging by 4.0 per cent over 2018 figures to the end of September, with 4800 fewer vehicles sold this year.

MIA chief executive officer David Crawford said September continued the up-and-down pattern of the 2019 market.

“In addition to strong sales of EVs, some distributors had a good month, with Holden rocketing up the sales charts and Toyota enjoying a massive September mainly off the back of rental sales,” he said.

Holden’s performance in NZ was in stark contrast to its fortunes in Australia where its sales slipped 38 per cent last month, dropping it out of the industry top 10.

Registrations of NZ passenger cars and SUVs climbed 9.4 per cent to 10,322 vehicles, but commercial vehicles slid 6.1 per cent to 4203.

Toyota’s 3007 sales topped the charts again, giving it a 20.7 per cent market share for the month.

Holden’s 1333 units was good for a 9.2 per cent share, putting it ahead of Ford with 1291 sales.

Toyota was the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 22.0 per cent market share (2226 units), followed by Holden with 8.0 per cent (877 units) and Hyundai’s 7.0 per cent (721).

Of Toyota’s 1011 Corolla sales, 736 were rentals where Brand T is first and daylight second, with three of its models topping the sales – Corolla, RAV4, Yaris and LandCruiser Prado.

Ford’s strong-selling Ranger achieved 814 sales to put the Blue Oval on top of the commercial vehicle list.

Toyota, led by its HiLux (603) was second on 781 sales, with Holden third on 456 sales.

NZ top 10 makes September 2019