New Zealand’s new car industry felt the impact of international logistic restraints last month with October usually a strong month for the industry.

Motor Industry Association (MIA) Chief Executive David Crawford says that there were 13,870 sales of new vehicles for the month of October 2021, an increase of 16.8 percent  (1994 units) on the same month in 2020.

While sales of new vehicles for the month were ahead of 2020 they were well behind October returns in each of the years from 2016 to 2019 inclusive, according to the MIA.

Stock levels remain low, with shipments of new vehicles going through customs, entry compliance, and straight onto customers. There remain long waitlists for popular models. International and domestic logistic constraints due to Covid-19 and microchip shortages continue to adversely affect the sector, according to the MIA. 

Year to date there have been 136,886 registrations, an increase of 37,536 units (37.8 percent) compared to the first 10 months of 2020.

The Ford Ranger was once again the top model with 1610 registrations, followed by the Toyota RAV4 (861) and the Toyota Corolla (742). The Toyota Hilux was down to the fifth position with 585 registrations.  

Toyota remains the overall market leader with a 23 percent market share (3123 units), followed by Ford with 15 percent (2088 units) and Mitsubishi in the third spot with 8 percent market share (1094 units).  

There were 485 light vehicles and four heavy vehicle full battery electric vehicles registered in October. The top-selling models were the Hyundai Kona (136 units) followed by the MG ZS (97 units) and the Tesla Model 3 (95 units). 

There were 213 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles registered in October. The top-selling models were the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross (58 units) followed by the MG HS (54 units) and the Mitsubishi Outlander (17 units).

Hybrids continued their consistent strength with 1,541 vehicles registered in the month of October. The top-selling models were the Toyota RAV4 (738 units) followed by the Toyota Corolla (197 units) and Toyota Highlander (140 units). 

Toyota retained the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with a 25 percent market share (2324 units) followed by Mitsubishi with 10percent (961 units) and then Hyundai with a 7 percent market share (642 units). 

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (861 units) followed by the Toyota Corolla (742 units) and the Mitsubishi Outlander (693 units).

Ford retained the market lead with 38percent market share (1769 units) followed by Toyota with 17 percent (799 units) and Nissan third with 8percent market share (383 units).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot for the month of October as the best selling commercial model with 34 percent share (1610 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 12 percent share (585 units) and the Nissan Navara in third place with 8 percent market share (383 units).