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Quarterly new vehicle registrations have seen the market responding to the call for lower fuel consumption vehicles, while at the same time supply issues are still disrupting the market.

With petrol prices increasing rapidly to well over $3 per litre in 2022, in tandem with Government initiatives to incentivize fuel efficiency, there has been a steady and seemingly inevitable shift in buying behavior. The vehicle manufacturers have responded with more hybrid and pure electric vehicles available in the market.  

In 2019 there were 467 sales of pure EV’s or Hybrids in the top 10 sellers, making up 1.3% of those sales, in 2022 YTD there are 12,058 EVs or Hybrids in the top 10 selling models, making up 40% of those sales. 

Rental registrations have boosted YTD registrations by over 9,100 units. This is 7.5% of all new vehicles registered this year and when compared to 2018 (1.8%) and 2019 (3.2%) this indicates that we are expecting a significant influx of tourists with the NZ borders now fully open.   

Used import registrations remain low with only 25,000 units registered in Q2 2022, compared to the average for 2021 of over 32,000 units. Registrations of smaller vehicles like the Aqua, Prius, Axela, Leaf and Corolla remain strong. 

• SUV registrations have maintained their dominance as the preferred choice for Kiwi drivers. Q3 2022 had over 22,000 registrations of SUV/wagons, the highest we have seen.
• The impact of the Clean car fees has impacted Ute registrations at just over 7,000 units. While this is up significantly on the Q2 result of 3,400, it is still well below the average for the last few years of just over 8,000 units per quarter.