Level 4 lockdown took a hammer to monthly vehicle registrations

Thursday, 2 September 2021

These are the ten best-selling vehicles in New Zealand in 2021, as of the end of August.

Rather unsurprisingly, the snap Level 4 lockdown shut most of the country in August has resulted in a massive drop in monthly vehicle registrations.

There were 6746 vehicles sold compared to 10,610 vehicles in August 2020, a decrease of 36.2 per cent (3864 units). The August outturn came in approximately 45 per cent lower than the three previous months (May, June and July of) this year.

Year to date, we’re still up on 2020, with 106,498 vehicles sold compared to 76,572 to end of August 2020, an overall increase 39.1 per cent (29,926 units).

The Ford Ranger was, once again, the most popular vehicle for the month of August.

Electrified sales were healthy before Level 4, with 350 BEVs, 81 PHEVs and 804 hybrids sold.

**READ MORE:

The Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV has proven to be a good seller, topping the monthly plug-in hybrid charts.

* Mitsubishi ASX knocks off the Toyota Hilux in June car sales

* Ranger fights back against Hilux in April sales

Combined, Toyota and Lexus accounted for 85 per cent of the hybrid market.

* These are the most popular electric and electrified vehicles in NZ

Of those battery electric sales, the bestsellers were the Tesla Model 3 (191 units) followed by the MG ZS EV (56 units) and the Hyundai Kona (31 units).

The top-selling plug-in hybrids were the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross PHEV (28 units), followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander (23 units) and the MG HS PHEV (12 units).

As for hybrids, the most popular models were the Toyota RAV4 (219 units) followed by the Toyota Corolla (150 units) and Toyota Camry (94 units). Toyota and Lexus together accounted for 85 percent of the hybrid market in August (689 units).

SUVs remain popular, with the compact segment the largest in the market with 22 per cent share, dethroning the pick-up/chassis 4x4 segment, which had 16 per cent, along with SUV medium.

Interestingly, year-to-date, 56 per cent of the market are small to medium-sized vehicles.

Toyota remains the overall market leader with 23 per cent market share (1578 units), followed by Ford with 12 per cent (817 units) and Mitsubishi in third spot with 10 per cent market share (673 units).

As for the most popular vehicle, that honour goes to the Ford Ranger, which sold 671 units. The Toyota Hilux has been hamstrung by supply issues for a while, evident in 298 units shifted over August. Second and third best-selling vehicles over August were a surprise return to form by the Toyota Corolla, and the Toyota RAV4 (447 units and 302 units respectively).