NZ car sales take expected to hit, waiting for a bounce back after lockdown.

Monthly new vehicle registration data released reveal the immediate impact of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the New Zealand new vehicle market.
March 2020 registrations were down 37.3 per cent (4954 units) compared to the same month last year, with 8317 new vehicles registered compared to March 2019 with 13,271 registrations.

“The month of March was already slowing due to supply constraints from shut down manufacturing plants around the world and then they ground to a halt when the COVID-19 alert Level 4 was implemented,” said Motor Industry Association chief executive David Crawford.

“Year to date the market is down 15.6 per cent (6075 units) on the same period in 2019.

“The prospect for registrations during April remains bleak with the COVID-19 Level 4 alert planned to be in place for the majority of the trading month.”

Pure electric vehicles bucked the downward trend and were slightly up with 144 units sold in March headed by 79 registrations for the Tesla Model 3. There were also 58 PHEV and 511 hybrid vehicles sold last month in New Zealand.

Four pick-up/chassis cab models led the model rankings in March with the Ford Ranger the most popular model with 444 units registrations followed by the Toyota Hilux (435 units), the Holden Colorado (370 units) and Mitsubishi Triton (347 units).

Toyota was the overall market leader gaining 18 per cent market share (1515 units) in March followed by Holden with 10 per cent (835 units) as the brand moved into the final sell-out phase preparing for its exit from the market.

Mitsubishi ranked third with 8 per cent market share (694 units) ahead of Ford (661 units), also with 8 per cent share.

Toyota was also the market leader for passenger and SUV registrations with 17 per cent market share (918 units) followed by Holden with 9 per cent (461 units) and then Suzuki with 7 per cent share (397 units).

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Toyota RAV4 (318 units) followed by the Toyota Corolla (240 units), Nissan Qashqai (173 units), Kia Sportage (162 units) and Suzuki Swift (159 units).

In the first three months of 2020 the four SUV segments (Compact, Medium, Large and Luxury) totalled 15,721 units and represent 70 per cent of new passenger vehicle registrations (22,403 units).

While car sales queues are no doubt forming, once the lockdown is over, we expect to see a large increase.