Lee Marshall: Motor Trade Association CEO on new car sales jumping 13% in August, Chinese car brands making significant gains
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Why are new car sales up 13% in August despite higher fuel prices?
The Great Economic Conundrum. continues to unfold for this country. So apparently we can't afford petrol. So the government holds the excise increase and yet we're out buying new cars with alacrity. New data for August, nine thousand one hundred and thirty seven passenger vehicles alone, up thirteen percent on last year. Lee Marshall is the CEO of the Motor Trade Association and is with us. Lee, morning to you. Morning, mate. What's your link to the economy? How do you explain when I say the nine thousand, if you look at the total light vehicle sales of twenty thousand two hundred and fifty two, which is up seven and a half percent, how come everyone's got any money for a new car? Well I suspect
the price of fuel has quite a bit to do with it. Um I mean there's there's there's no way that it can't. I mean interestingly in the last Um in in in August actually it was the lowest number of um of uh as a percentage share of battery and plug in hybrid vehicles that were sold in the month at about twenty five percent of the of the vehicles registered to passengers, but uh as passenger fleet for Uh you know, for you and I to drive around, but Um but yeah, there's no doubt the price of fuel has totally changed what people are buying at just the same time as sure so many um value auctions have come into the market to to to replace those combustion engines. So we
seem to have two stories here. One is the number of whatever we're buying is up. Is it up off a really low base and therefore it's sort of semi inflated? In other words, th these aren't great numbers or they are great numbers.
It depends how far back you want to go. Um I would say the numbers that we're seeing right now are somewhat normal and therefore if we're up we're up and that's a good thing in the last little while. But if you if you were to go back kind of six or seven years ago, the numbers are quite miserable to the numbers that we were doing through kind of twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. Um so um yeah, it depends how far back you want to go. But um but I would say positive. Um and and and that fits in with what I hear from a lot of businesses out there. I do hear from some businesses are struggling, but to be honest, for everyone I hear of like that, I hear from another one who tells me they're doing quite fine.
They just don't tend to shout about it.
Exactly, me too. So the the the extension of that question line is is this a pathway forward? Are we see is this us for the rest of the year? We're on a we're on some sort of movement here.
How is the price of fuel influencing New Zealanders’ choice of vehicles?
Um, could be. Um I don't know if anybody in the in in the car market would be would be quite so optimistic as that. Um but um but we can all we can hope. I mean typically as we head towards election that affects everything in the economy, so it's reasonable we'll expect some hesitancy over the next couple of months. Um but um but I think it's a positive trend. Um I mean one thing to bear in mind as well is you know a lot of a lot of what was sold last month did go to rental car, um which does somewhat corrupt the numbers, but they're still good numbers.
Yeah, but that's uh but that's also good. I mean, why are you buying rental cars? You're buying rental cars because tourism's booming and you presumably see a demand.
Absolutely. And you know, today's rental cars become tomorrow's, you know, one or two year old used products that that appeals to a different segment of the market. Right. The second part of that
question line then is or story is is the E V bit of it. It's permanent now, isn't it? The the market has shifted and the Chinese are at play.
I think absolutely no doubt. I mean things that really jumped out at me in the last if you're just looking at the last three months, um, more than twice as many BYD were sold as Mazda or Honda or Hyundai. Believe it or not, more bone thing was sold than Volkswagen. Um, more X Peng were sold than Peugeot. Um, the market's totally changing and um and when you do look at the the Chinese brands coming into the market, they were about twenty five percent of what was registered
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