September new vehicle registrations good for Tesla

Monday, 5 October 2020

September new vehicle registrations show a Covid-caused drop compared to last year but there’s good news for Tesla.

The American EV maker cracked the top 15 highest-selling brands in the country for cars/SUVs, shifting 158 units. The Model 3 comprised 139 of those sales. There were 243 pure electric vehicles, 54 PHEVs and 927 hybrid vehicles sold for the month.

In total, September saw 10,610 vehicle sales, 24.9 per cent (3682 units) less than the same month in 2019. The market for the year-to-date is down 23.8 per cent (27,314 units) compared to the first nine months of 2019.

Good sales for the Tesla Model 3 helped put the brand into the top 15 for monthly car and SUV registrations.

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 15 per cent market share (1623 units), followed by Ford with 9 per cent (994 units) and Mitsubishi in third spot also with 9 per cent market share (978 units).

**READ MORE:

Will Toyota’s just-released Hilux update be enough to dethrone the dominant Ford Ranger?

* August registrations down thanks to second lockdown

* New vehicle sales in July are up

* EV a top ten seller for the first time in NZ

* Are we over utes? (Spoiler: no we're not)

Toyota was also the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations, holding 16 per cent of the market (1217 units), followed by Kia with 10 per cent (801 units) and Suzuki with eight per cent share (625 units. The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (464 units) followed by the Suzuki Swift (290 units) and the Kia Sportage (285 units).

Ford retained the market lead with 25 per cent market share (803 units) followed by Toyota with 13 per cent (406 units) and Mitsubishi third with 11 per cent market share (360 units).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot as the bestselling commercial model with 21 per cent share (663 units) followed by the Mitsubishi Triton with 11 per cent share (360 units) and the Toyota Hilux in third place with eight per cent market share (265 units).

The top spot went to the SUV medium vehicles with 22 per cent share followed by SUV Compact with 19 per cent market share and then the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with 13 per cent share.