EVs burn bright with highest ever sales

Car sales have bounced back strongly with the best figures in five years.

Better still electric vehicles or EVs finished the month of August with the greatest market share ever recorded.

In August sales of EVs represented 4.4 per cent of the market as a whole, with sales of Tesla vehicles accounting for 3397 units alone.

In fact, the Tesla Model 3 SUV is now the fourth largest selling vehicle in Australia, with 2380 sales last month, putting it ahead of the Toyota Land Cruiser.

Figures show a total of 95,256 new vehicles were sold in August bringing the total for the year-to-date to 717,575 — 2.1 per cent less than for the same period in 2021.

Sales of EVs are up 368 per cent so far this year, while sales of traditional petrol-powered vehicles are down 9.7 per cent.

Breaking down the figures, sales of electric cars have jumped a massive 761 per cent, SUVs 156 per cent and light commercials (utes and vans) 3 per cent.

At the same time petrol cars dropped 9.2 percent and petrol SUVs are down 6.4 per cent, utes and vans are actually up 19.6 per cent.

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) Chief Exec Tony Weber said the result was encouraging amid the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The August VFacts sales are the best August result since 2017,” he said.

“This gives hope that the supply of vehicles to the Australian market is beginning to show signs of improvement.”

Mr Weber noted the increase in electric vehicle sales throughout August.

“We have seen strong sales of battery electric vehicles in August,” he said.

“Year-to-date EV sales are 2 per cent of the total market, hybrids are 7.6 per cent and plug in hybrid vehicles are 0.6 per cent.

“Combined electrified vehicles are now just over 10 per cent of total sales in 2022.”

Top 20 vehicles in Australia

 

The Passenger Vehicle Market is up by 2658 vehicle sales (15.3 per cent) over the same month last year.

Sports Utility Market (SUVs) is up by 7590 vehicle sales (18.5 per cent), the Light Commercial Market is up by 3236 vehicle sales (16.8 per cent) and the Heavy Commercial Vehicle Market is up by 573 vehicle sales (15.7 per cent).

Sales across most States and Territories increased.

The ACT increased 49.8 per cent with 1410 vehicles sold.

NSW 40 per cent (30,501); the Northern Territory 4.2 per cent (816), Queensland 11.7 per cent (21,379) and Victoria 18.4 per cent (25,053).

Sales in all other States decreased.

South Australia -9.7 per cent (5702), Tasmania -3 per cent (1611) and Western Australia -6.5 per cent (8784).

Toyota led the market with a total of 20,616 vehicles sold.

Mazda was next with 8824 followed by Kia (6780), Hyundai (6643) and Mitsubishi (6380).

The Toyota Hilux was the highest selling model with 6214 sales reported.

The Ford Ranger followed with 4497. Toyota’s RAV4 was next with 2482 followed by Tesla’s Model 3 (2380) and Toyota’s Land Cruiser (2379).

Look out for the end of the Federal Government’s fuel excise relief on September 29 when excise returns from 22 to 44 cents a litre.

It’s likely to have an adverse effect on car sales.

 

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