Vehicle demand running well ahead of 2020 pace.

CONSTRAINED supply had no impact on the new vehicle market last month – it was the strongest November since record taking began in the mid 1970s and a big contributor to the year-to-date count being massively above the tally for the same period of 2020.

 In announcing data, the Motor Industry Association – which represents almost all new passenger and light commercial vehicle distributors – said 153,362 registrations from January 1 to the end of last month was 42,123 units up on the same span last year; a 37.8 percent lift.

Association chief executive David Crawford says the November-specific tally of 16,327 sales was an increase of 37.3 percent; being 4438 units up on the same month of last year.

 He says the market remains buoyant despite stock levels remaining low. Recent shipments of new vehicles have helped to alleviate some of the long wait lists for popular models and he believes careful forward planning by distributors is reducing impacts of shipping constraints due to Covid-19 and microchip shortages. 

 The top selling model for last month was the Ford Ranger utility, which also achieved as the best selling commercial with 1538 units. In passenger the Mitsubishi Outlander topped, with 1017 units, followed by two Toyotas, the Corolla (734) and RAV4 (726).

 Toyota remained the overall market leader in November, with 19 percent market share (3126 units), followed by Mitsubishi ( 14 percent, 2312 units) then Ford (12 percent, 1948 units).  Toyota also dominated the sports utility and car categories, Ford was the top brand in commercial, largely thanks to Ranger.

 The battery electric market also ran strongly. Within the wholly electric sector, 927 light and 20 heavy full battery electric vehicles were registered. The top sellers were the Tesla Model 3, with 408 units, followed by the MG ZS (121) and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 (100).

 There were 432 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles registered, with the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross achieving the most, with  171 units. The Mitsubishi Outlander was next, with 100 units, then the MG HS, on 40.

 The hybrids take came to 1462 vehicles, the RAV4 claiming 553 registrations, Corolla 182 and Honda’s Jazz (130).