Tesla Model 3 crushes Hilux in September sales

Tuesday, 5 October 2021

The Ranger extends its lead as New Zealand has its second biggest monthly sales tally on record. And an EV creeps closer to the top ten...

New car sales have bounced back strongly following the country moving down alert levels, even with Auckland still in Alert Level 3, with the Motor Industry Association reporting 16,518 new vehicle registrations in September, the second strongest month of any month since the MIA began keeping records.

This number represents a huge jump of 51.5 per cent in sales compared to the same month last year when 10,902 new vehicles were registered.

The MIA also reports that so far this year 123,016 new vehicles have been sold, compared to 87,474 to end of September 2020, an overall increase year to date of 40.6 per cent (35,542 units).

The Tesla Model 3 has become the first EV to break into the top three sellers for the month.

It was also an exceptionally strong month for vehicles with some form of electrification in their drivetrain, with EVs, PHEVs and hybrids making up 21 per cent of total sales (3,505 units).

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The Mitsubishi Outlander continued its strong run, no doubt a mix of runout sales of the old model and interest in the new model.

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Mitsubishi’s Eclipse Cross PHEV was the best selling plug-in hybrid for September.

Consisting of 1,512 light and heavy BEVs, 537 PHEVs and 1,456 hybrids vehicles, this is also the first time more fully electric vehicles have been registered in a month than straight hybrid vehicles.

The surge in EV registrations was largely accounted for by Tesla, which has successfully avoided the worst of the effects of product shortages and managed to continue deliveries, which has seen the Model 3 take second place in sales for September with 1066 registrations, not quite managing to dislodge the dominant Ford Ranger in the top slot 1408 registrations. The Mitsubishi Outlander slotted into third place with 963 registrations.

It is, however, the first time a fully-electric model has cracked the top three.

The top-selling passenger EVs for the month were the Tesla Model 3 (1066 units) followed by the MG ZS EV (122 units) and the Hyundai Kona (84 units), while of the 537 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles registered in September, Mitsubishi sold 282 examples of the Eclipse Cross, followed by the Mitsubishi Outlander (115 units) and the MG HS (47 units).

Hybrids continued their consistent strength with 1456 vehicles registered in the month of September, dominated by Toyota. The top-selling models were the Toyota RAV4 with 466 units, followed by the Toyota Corolla (247 units) and Toyota Yaris Cross (117 units).

In terms of segments, compact and medium SUVs remain the biggest markets with 22 and 19 per cent share respectively, followed by the Pick Up/Chassis 4x4 segment with a 14 per cent market share.

Interestingly, despite our continuing love for large utes, the MIA says that, year to date, 56 per cent of the market are small to medium-sized vehicles.

While the Hilux has dropped off due to supply issues, strong hybrid sales have seen Toyota remain the overall market leader for September with an 18 per cent market share (2934 units), followed by Mitsubishi with 13 per cent (2176 units) and Ford in third spot with 11 per cent (1870 units). Impressively, Tesla was in forth spot with a 6 per cent share (1066 units).

Tesla also slipped into the top three for SUV and passenger vehicle sales with the strong performance of the Model 3 in September, with Toyota again retaining the market lead with 17 per cent of the segment (1993 units), closely followed by Mitsubishi with 16 per cent (1920 units) and then Tesla with 9 per cent (1066 units).

The top-selling passenger and SUV models for the month were the Model 3, the Mitsubishi Outlander (963 units) and the Toyota Corolla (744 units).

And, finally, of course utes remained strong in September, with Ford easily retaining the market lead with a massive 32 per cent of the market (1503 units), followed by Toyota with 20 per cent (941 units) and Mitsubishi third with 6 per cent (256 units).

The Ford Ranger retained the top spot for the month of September as the bestselling commercial model with 30 per cent share (1408 units) followed by the Toyota Hilux with 648 units and the Toyota Hiace in third place with 232 units.