New vehicle sales in May were down, but the leading player still had something to cheer about.

THE new vehicle market was down by around a third last month, but a big surge of interest in the RAV4 during that period has buoyed its distributor.

Toyota New Zealand says the crossover achieving 538 registrations to place as the top-selling car in May, when 8313 new vehicle registrations were accrued in total, also reveals a scenario that might outwardly might seem surreal given the market condition.

At a time when new vehicle sales are dropping, this car is in hot demand – so much so that anyone ordering one now won’t see it until perhaps July or August.

Actually, it’s just the battery-assisted edition that’s on the ‘most wanted’ list. TNZ always knew the hybrid would be popular – it surged ahead at launch simply because every dealer wanted one as a demonstrator – but is impressed nonetheless that the private market is driving the car’s progress now.

And there’s another twist. The RAV4s that have been built for the rental market, which now wants out of new vehicle with international tourism now kaput, cannot be diverted to meet that demand, as hire companies only ordered the petrol pure variants.

In discussing the May count, TNZ chief operating officer Neeraj Lala says he has around 800 RAV4 hybrid pre-orders still unfulfilled. Most of those cars should be delivered in June, the remainder probably in July.

All up, TNZ’s passenger volume in May is down around eight percent year-on-year, not so bad all things considered. What factors into this is that it was delivering cars ordered before lockdown.

As for what happens from now on? “Our new car inquiry rate is low,” he concedes. “But we have this incredible back order of deliveries, so for the next couple of months we will still look quite good. So, in that sense, it’s quite good. And the (ongoing) demand for hybrid RAV4 is simply phenomenal, a little bit unprecedented.”

The Motor Industry Association, which speaks for distributors, has also signalled a degree of satisfaction with the May result, which though well off the same month last year, when 12,5259 cars and light commercials were sold, nonetheless represents a relatively decent post lockdown result, given the circumstances.

“The month of May re-opened for business albeit in a constrained manner,” noted chief executive David Crawford.

“It was a challenging month operating under alert level two and an economically depressed environment.”

Year-to-date the entire new vehicle market is down by 19,622 units, a 32 percent drop on the count for the same period of 2019.

Registrations of 5401 passenger and SUVs for last month were 29.2 percent (2223 units) below 2019 volumes while a commercial vehicle tally of 2912 units represents a 37.2 percent decrease.

After RAV4 the Ford Ranger installed as the second-strongest seller for May, though with 498 units, with another Toyota, the Hilux, nabbing third place, just 58 units behind. Lala was also stoked with that result.

Toyota was the overall market leader with 19 percent market share with 1611 units, followed by Holden, with nine percent (760 units) then Ford (eight percent, 702 units).

The MIA has joined those calling for the Government to bring the country to Level One Covid-19 restrictions “sooner rather than later.”

Commented Crawford: “The MIA shares the views of many that with no new Covid-19 cases for the last 11 days and no known community spread for at least two months, we should be looking to move to alert level 1.

“The country is better prepared now to manage the odd case of Covid-19 should it arise. Our health system has improved significantly in terms of testing capability, contact tracing and hospital intensive care capacity.

“It is time to get our economy moving forward while maintaining our health gains.”