Car Sales Top 10
New car sales are still buoyant in Australia, with many buyers happily spending on an upgrade. According to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), the total vehicles sold in April, including passenger cars, SUVs, light and heavy commercial vehicles and the national government fleet was 82,930 units. Of these units the Toyota Hilux re-claimed first place as the top-selling vehicle, with 3596 sales in April. How much of the car sales pie do Electric Vehicles take out? Let’s have a look at Australia’s top 10 models sold in April 2017:
- Toyota HiLux (3,596 units)
- Toyota Corolla (2,979 units)
- Ford Ranger (2,796 units)
- Mazda3 (2,261 units)
- Toyota Land Cruiser (2,018 units)
- Hyundai i30 (1,903 units)
- Hyundai Tucson (1,816 units)
- Mazda CX5 (1,725 units)
- Mitsubishi ASX (1,706 units)
- Toyota Prado (1,699 units)
Across the Tasman, our New Zealand friends are seeing that their Top 10 car sales list is weighted toward the ute, and it looks more like this:
- Ford Ranger (2,360 units)
- Toyota Hilux (2,251 units)
- Toyota Corolla (1,501 units)
- Holden Colorado (1,164 units)
- Mitsubishi Triton (1,068 units)
- Nissan Navara (980 units)
- Toyota Rav4 (893 units)
- Mazda CX-5 (883 units)
- Suzuki Swift (825 units)
- Kia Sportage (795 units)
I couldn’t stop myself and I had to check out how Australia’s top selling models compared to the top ten models sold in the UK for April 2018. Our UK friends are opting to buy smaller cars, I guess to cater for more congestion and greater intensities of city driving. And this is how it looks for the UK top 10 models:
- Ford Fiesta (40,619 units)
- Volkswagen Golf (26,685 units)
- Nissan Qashqai (21,171 units)
- Ford Focus (19,344 units)
- Vauxhall Corsa (17,995 units)
- Ford Kuga (15,865 units)
- Mercedes A-Class (14,849 units)
- MINI (14,297 units)
- Vauxhall Mokka X (13,579 units)
- Mercedes C-Class (13,495 units)
And just for another take on car sales I decided to take a look at how the new car sales are tracking in ‘The Land Of The Free’. Over in the States “Big is still better”, so the top 10 selling cars for the USA in March 2018 were:
- Ford F-Series (87,011 units)
- Chevrolet Silverado (52,547 units)
- Nissan Rogue (42,151 units)
- Ram Pick-up ( 41,307 units)
- Toyota RAV4 (34,937 units)
- Toyota Camry (35,264 units)
- Chevrolet Equinox (31,940 units)
- Honda Civic (32,584 units)
- Honda CR-V (31,868 units)
- Toyota Corolla (31,392 units)
It’s a funny thing considering people’s perceptions on what the best car might be to buy new. In Australia we have a need for the 4×4, particularly when heading Outback.
New Zealander’s obviously love the ute – often with 4×4 capability. The ute does give a flexibility to motoring that you just can’t find anywhere else on the car sales yard.
In the UK, owning a car that has an ability to park in tight spaces and remain frugal on a commute seems to stay at the forefront of why certain cars are purchased over others.
America continues to love their big rigs, and that’s why we still see the awesome Ford F-Series truck, Chevrolet Silverado and the Ram Pick-up in the top 4 buys.
For Australia in 2017 just 0.09% of the total new cars sold were Electric Vehicles. For the USA in 2017 just 1.18% of the total new cars sold were Electric Vehicles. UK figures show that in 2017 Electric Vehicles made up 1.9% of all new cars sold in the UK. Across the ditch, Kiwis purchased 546 fully electric cars in New Zealand 2017, and this equates to 0.16% of the total new cars bought. Electric Vehicles and their attributes have a ways to go before changing a car buyer’s mind-set to buy ‘plug-in’ over ‘combustion’. The ball has started to roll, however, and we are seeing more plug-in stations becoming available in main Australian cities.
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