New vehicle buyers leading fuel use downward

Media Release
26 July 2006

New vehicle buyers leading fuel use downward

New vehicle buyers are leading the way in reducing the country’s dependence on oil imports.

According to figures released by the Motor Industry Association, large car sales have fallen dramatically from 23.7% of the new car market in the year 2000 to just 10.5% in June 2006. “This is only just ahead of the percentage for large cars during the 1970s oil crisis, when they were penalised by a 60% sales tax,” said Perry Kerr, CEO of the Motor Industry Association

During the same time period micro and light car sales have gone from just 6.9% of the new car market to 12.6%, indicating that there is a fundamental market shift going on. “This proves that suggestions buyers need extra incentives to choose more economical cars are wide of the mark,” said Mr. Kerr.

Broken down by the fuel consumption of individual vehicles, the average weighted fuel use of new cars sold in the six months to June 2005 was 9.7 litres per 100km, and for new commercial vehicles 10.2 litres per 100km. By June 2006, just a year later, this had improved to 9.2L/100km and 9.7L/100km respectively, a reduction in fuel use per vehicle of approximately 5%.

“If this level of improvement could be reflected across the country’s entire vehicle fleet it would make an enormous difference to the country’s balance of payments,” said Mr. Kerr, “but the fact that we continue to import ten year old technology in the form of thousands of old used vehicles is unfortunately taking the overall trend the other way.”

“We need to commend new car buyers for choosing fuel efficient cars in such numbers that there are long waiting lists for the most popular ones (this is something that incentives would only exacerbate),” Mr. Kerr said. “We also need to continue the call for the legislators to act on what is plainly obvious and put a rolling age limit on imported used vehicles.”

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Market Shift:

Volume

/ 2006 / 2006 / 2005 / 2003 / 2000
/ (June) / (YTD) / (calendar) / (calendar) / (calendar)
Micro and Light / 799 / 4,132 / 8,304 / 5,140 / 3,998
Small / 1,524 / 10,324 / 20,634 / 17,902 / 14,100
Medium / 1,193 / 6,325 / 13,477 / 12,658 / 13,615
Large / 670 / 5,500 / 14,216 / 18,108 / 13,647
Sports Cars / 88 / 528 / 1,690 / 1,770 / 1,331
Prestige / 143 / 903 / 1,479 / 1,579 / 1,421
Luxury / 111 / 822 / 1,314 / 1,414 / 1,116
MPV / 121 / 377 / 842 / 1,367 / 1,259
All Terrain / 1,705 / 7,691 / 15,444 / 10,323 / 7,043
/ 6,354 / 36,602 / 77,400 / 70,261 / 57,530

% of Sales

/ 2006 (June) / 2006 YTD / 2005 / 2003 / 2000
Micro and Light / 12.6 / 11.3 / 10.7 / 7.3 / 6.9
Small / 24.0 / 28.2 / 26.7 / 25.5 / 24.5
Medium / 18.8 / 17.3 / 17.4 / 18.0 / 23.7
Large / 10.5 / 15.0 / 18.4 / 25.8 / 23.7
Sports Cars / 1.4 / 1.4 / 2.2 / 2.5 / 2.3
Prestige / 2.3 / 2.5 / 1.9 / 2.2 / 2.5
Luxury / 1.7 / 2.2 / 1.7 / 2.0 / 1.9
MPV / 1.9 / 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.9 / 2.2
All Terrain / 26.8 / 21.0 / 20.0 / 14.7 / 12.2

% Change
/ 2000 to YTD 2006 / 2005 to current month
Micro & Light / 62.4 / 17.2
Small / 15.1 / -10.0
Medium / -27.0 / 7.8
Large / -36.7 / -42.6
Sports / -37.6 / -36.6
Prestige / -0.1 / 17.8
Luxury / 15.8 / 2.9
MPV / -52.9 / 75.1
All Terrain / 71.6 / 34.5

Fuel Consumption:

/ Jun-06 / 6 mths to June 06 / 2005 / 6 mths to June 05
Passenger / 9.2 / 9.3 / 9.5 / 9.7
Commercials / 9.7 / 9.7 / 10.0 / 10.2

ENDS

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