The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries have released their latest VFACTS data for August 2023. It’s fair to say, this wasn’t exactly normal month. While we’ve seeing a strong trend of electric vehicle accounting for an increased percentage of new vehicle sales month on month, in August, EVs dropped to 6.4% from 7.0 in July.
The total number of electric vehicle sales has grown in raw numbers from 6,846 in July to 6,984.
The reduction as a percentage is a result of more ICE sales, with a total growth in new vehicle sales of 15.4% compared to the same period in 2022. Australians took delivery of 109,966 new vehicles in August 2023.
While we’ve seen Tesla’s Model Y account for the 2nd highest sales numbers for a nameplate, this month, the electric mid-sized SUV fell to position 8 with 2,314 units. The Model 3 sold just 995 units, for a total of 3,309 Tesla vehicles sold into Australia this month.
The BYD Atto 3 sold 803 units, while other popular EVs like the Polestar 2 sold just 225 vehicles, the Kia EV6 sold 243 and Kia sold Ioniq 5 sold 105, while the newer Ioniq 6 sold 46. MG’s new low-cost MG5 sold 338 units.
The leader of the sales charts again is a ute, the Toyota Hi-lux with 5,762 units, followed closely by the Ford Range, Toyota RAV4 and Isuzu Ute D-Max.
If we include hybrids, and look at all low emissions technologies more than 1 in 6 vehicles sold in the month of August featured low emissions technologies.
It is likely the choice of consumers to continue to opt for ICE vehicles is a result of up-front purchase prices remaining high, a lack of supply for the EV models we do have and a lack of serious EV Ute options.
The transition to EVs won’t be helped by Tesla’s recent decision to discontinue the Model 3 until January 2024 when the refreshed Model 3 will arrive from Shanghai.
