Rentals help NZ new car registrations in November

The Toyota RAV4 had 1419 registrations in November. Photo: Toyota NZ

The car rental market gave the new car registration a much-needed boost, with Toyota’s RAV4 the top-selling vehicle for November.

Motor Industry Association (MIA) Chief Executive Aimee Wiley says that November’s new registrations were boosted by 4466 Rental units. This is the highest number of monthly rental  

registrations in the past four years contributing 30.7% of registrations last month.

“Light commercial registrations continue to be significantly impacted with savvy consumers awaiting the upcoming removal of Clean Car Discount  Fees,” said Wiley.

Commercial registrations were down 32% on November 2022 and 40.9% on November 2021.  

Overall, November registrations remain 7.1% lower than November 2022 (15,621 units) and 11.1%  lower than November 2021 (16,327 units). 

On a year-to-date basis, 2023 is 8.9% lower than 2022 (13,637 units) and 9.0% lower than 2021 (13,870 units).  

Top 3 overall market leaders in November 2023 are: Toyota with 24.9% market share (3,615  units), followed by Ford with 13.0% (1,894 units) and Mitsubishi with 8.0% (1,160 units).  

he overall top 3 segments in November were SUV Medium (32.7%), followed by SUV  Compact (18.5%) and Small Vehicle (12.6%).

The RAV4, a popular rental vehicle, topped sales with 1419 registrations, followed by Ford Ranger (1083) and Mitsubishi Outlander in third place with 558. 

The Tesla Model Ywas in fourth place (544), and the top selling full electric car.