While it might be unsurprising to see that Ford is still shifting stacks of Rangers, March’s registration figures show that EVs aren’t all that far behind.
According to the Motor Industry Association, registrations of passenger vehicles and SUVs were up 4% (444 units) on March 2022 to a total of 11,626 units, while light commercial registrations dropped 55.5% (5451 units) compared to last year. That huge change is due to the Clean Car Discount change last year which began to penalise high emitters like utes starting last April.
Year-on-year comparisons illustrate the effect government policy can have in changing purchaser behaviour. March 2022 light commercial vehicles sales were the strongest ever, but have since struggled to regain strong performance with the impact of the CCD fees most of these vehicles now attract, said MIA principal technical advisor, Mark Stockdale.
Matthew Hansen/Stuff
The Ford Ranger is as popular as ever, according to registration figures from March.
Ford sold 1333 Rangers over March, comfortably ahead of the next best, Toyota’s Hilux (834 units). Toyota has gone on record in saying it doesn’t want to bring in too many Hiluxes to keep its fleet emissions in check.
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Speaking to Stuff, Lala said that the brand believes sales of its ever-popular Hilux should not exceed 30% of its total deliveries.
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Toyota is limiting the amount of Hiluxes it is bringing into the country to keep its fleet emissions in check.
“[We are] only going to bring in a fixed number of Hiluxes. And when those Hiluxes are allocated to customers, they are gone. We could bring in more, but we’re not going to,” said Lala.
“… On the new car side, we have to operate a balanced portfolio of products to be on our CO2 trajectory and satisfy customers,” Lala added.
“To do that we’ve looked at our mix and gone ‘we don’t believe Hilux can exceed any more than about 27 to 30% of our total unit’.”
Nile Bijoux/Stuff
The Tesla Model Y put on a good showing once again as the best-selling BEV.
Meanwhile, there were 2656 BEVs, 515 PHEVs and 2,503 hybrid vehicles registered in March. Of those BEVs, the Tesla Model Y was the best seller, and the third strongest for the month with 761 units shifted. It was followed by the BYD Atto 3 (617 units) and the MG ZS EV (307 units).
Interestingly, for the year-to-date, the Atto 3 is fractionally outselling the Model Y, with 995 registrations against 991.
Tesla typically gets large shipments of vehicles every so often, while Toyota is constantly bringing in models. That’s why Tesla sometimes has huge spikes in registrations.
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Mitsubishi’s plug-in Eclipse Cross was the strongest PHEV for March.
There were 515 PHEVs registered for the month of March. The top models were the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (176 units) followed by the Kia Sorento (131 units) and the MG HS (31 units).
Registrations of hybrid vehicles (HEVs) remained strong with 2503 vehicles registered in March. The top models were the Toyota RAV4 (455 units), followed by the Honda Jazz (245) and the Suzuki Swift (211 units).
Finally, Toyota regained the market lead for passenger and SUV vehicles with 14% of the market, followed by Kia with 11% and Hyundai with 10%. As you might expect, Ford was the leader of the commercial market with 33% of share, followed by Toyota at 25% then Mitsubishi with 7%.
