Lee Marshall: Motor Trade Association CEO on Fiat pulling its electric vehicles out of the Australian and New Zealand markets
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Why did Fiat withdraw its electric 500e models from Australia and New Zealand?
What we've seen in Australia, we alerted you to this a couple of weeks ago, so what we've seen there starting to happen here, Fiat are pulling passenger cars out of New Zealand, which is a very sad day. Lee Marshall is the CEO of the Motor Trade Association and is with us. Lee, morning. Good morning, Mike. Is there more where this came from, do you reckon?
I wouldn't know any details in specific about it, but I think the general trend is very real, which is you've got a lot of new entrants coming into the markets. that are putting pressure on a lot of the incumbents. And truth be told, New Zealand is a marginal market by any standard.
Who is Lee Marshall and what perspective does he bring as Motor Trade Association CEO?
So it's changing the value equation for people who are bringing cars in.
So if you're a niche player at the moment like Fiat is, they are the ones to look for that could potentially be in trouble. If you're not selling much anyway, it's not long before you're not selling any.
Or you're just, it was always marginal that, you know, it was viable how many vehicles you are selling. And then it becomes even more marginal with changes. So, I mean, I couldn't speak for Fiat. I don't know what's going on with them. They sell plenty of vans here and one very small car that I'm aware of. So, like, I'm not aware of how marginal that is.
How are new entrant brands putting pressure on incumbent car makers?
But nonetheless, there is pressure on a lot of the incumbents. And one of the things we've seen in the last two and a half years is, If you look, for example, at the top six biggest selling brands in New Zealand, two and a half years ago, they made up about 55% of new vehicle registrations. Last month, they only made up about 45% because the others, the smaller brands, are growing. And most of that's coming from... new entrants, particularly out of China.
Yeah. LVD is going as well, which I thought was semi-interesting. Is it all price? I mean, if you, in this case, it's the Chinese, can throw a whole bunch of stuff into a market, cheap urine, that's how it works.
I think it's always about viability. And I think it's also a mistake to think that in many instances, these brands are directly in the market. Many of them operate through distributors, through intermediaries. So, for example, I think even when you look in Australia and, for example, Peugeot being removed from that market, it's not Peugeot that have withdrawn from that market. It's the distributor has decided they no longer want to bring in that brand. Gotcha. which probably means they're just going to put their effort and energy into something else that they think has a better long-term future. And I think you're going to see that over here as well with lots of distributors making such decisions because the market is changing.
It's amazing how many vehicles now have sold thousands this year that last year weren't even around. Isn't that incredible, eh?
Yeah.
Yeah, how many Dong Fengs have come into the country, how many GWMs or Havels. Have you heard of GEC?
I was reading about the GEC this morning. Have you heard of them?
Yep, absolutely. I saw some of them on display in Albany Mall a little while ago. Yeah, and like many of these new entrant brands coming in, they're really confronting head-on stereotypes about what they are. There's the perception that they're not high quality, so they've made themselves look and feel very high quality. You know, there was the perception that maybe the technology wasn't up to spec. Now, arguably, many of them have globally leading technology, particularly in terms of battery electric vehicles. Because, yeah, make no mistake, when it comes to pure electric vehicles, China is really the world leader in that space right now.
Exactly. Good insight, Lee. Appreciate it very much. Lee Marshall is the boss of the Motor Trade Association. Very good piece, I think. It was in the Sydney Morning Herald the other day about the, I mean, the problem with China, I mean, the good news about the war. is China's EV industry has largely been saved because the demand for EVs have gone up around the world because of the oil. But there are so many, and I cite GAC.
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