VFACTS 2022: Winners and losers

The first year of (vague) normality after years of COVID disruptions also brought some welcome growth to Australia’s new car market.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) today reported sales of 1,081,429 vehicles in 2022, which represents a 3.0 per cent improvement over 2021.

But that welcome VFACTS result – the second consecutive annual increase – to some extent hides the turmoil behind the scenes.

Most brands had stock shortages and/or shipping delays, which led to often long waiting lists and fewer 2022 deliveries than may have been the case.

Some brands were hit harder than others, and within the market there are some clear winners and losers.

Here are the standouts…

• Toyota: It’s been the top-selling brand for 20 consecutive years (26 years in total) and had a strong result in 2022 despite lengthy queues for some models (it even stopped taking orders of the LandCruiser 70 Series). Toyota’s 231,050 sales have also created the largest ever gap (135,332) to the second-placed brand, which for 2022 was Mazda.

• Tesla: The electric car-maker managed 19,594 sales in 2022 with just two models (one of which arrived in August), representing 62 per cent growth over 2021. In the process, Tesla became the 16th best-selling brand and the third best-selling prestige brand, overtaking Audi along the way.

• Utes: Load luggers set a new sales record of 228,671, helped in part by the arrival of an all-new Ford Ranger, which in turn spurned Toyota to protect the top-selling patch of the HiLux. But despite the sales record the ute market share slid ever so slightly, from 21.2 per cent in 2021 to 21.1 per cent last year.

• Diesel vehicles: Forget what you hear about diesel dying. Sales of diesel-powered vehicles grew by 4.2 per cent against a market that grew 3.0 per cent. Diesel-powered passenger cars (hatches, sedans and wagons) had their strongest result in four years and diesel SUVs grew 13.9 per cent. The only market segment where diesels dropped off was in light commercial vehicles, but given they account for 90 per cent of the LCV market (which makes up almost one quarter of the entire market) it didn’t dent the diesel growth.

• Large pick-up trucks: Aussies snapped up 8538 hulking American trucks (don’t call them utes…) in 2022 – and that’s excluding the lower-volume local conversions that aren’t reported in the official FCAI sales figures. RAM was the big winner with 6149 sales, making it the ninth best-seller of the 14 utes on the market. Even Chevrolet had plenty of reasons to smile following a 12.8 per cent year-on-year boost. Stand by for more growth as Ford Australia enters with the F-150 this year.

• EVs: Electric cars are finally turning into big business in Australia, at least in pockets of the market. Of the regular passenger cars (sedans, hatches and wagons) battery-electric vehicles now account for 7.2 per cent of the market (more than one in 14 sales). Most of those sales are for the Tesla Model 3 (10,877) and Polestar 2 (1524). Electric SUVs also posted 336 per cent growth, mostly off the back of the Tesla Model Y that arrived in August and accounted for almost half the 18,824 EV SUVs sold last year. The area EVs are falling short is commercial vehicles, with just 53 of the 256,391 powered solely by electricity.

• Volvo: The Swedish brand continues to surge up the sales charts as it heads towards its EV-only future. The Volvo XC40 and C40 EVs helped it to sales growth of 18.7 per cent in 2022.

• Kia: Now the third best-selling brand (up from fifth), the Korean car-maker posted impressive 15.3 per cent growth to surge past Ford and sister brand Hyundai in 2022.

• Nissan Patrol: The ageing Nissan Patrol is still a popular off-road beast, despite only being offered with a thirsty V8 petrol engine. Sales grew 72 per cent despite going head-to-head with the still-fresh Toyota LandCruiser 300 Series.

• SUVs: For only the second year, SUVs accounted for more than half the overall market. And, remarkably, sales of SUVs continued to grow by 8.1 per cent courtesy of new arrivals such as the Toyota Corolla Cross.

• Hybrid cars: While Toyota has been slow to the battery-electric car party, it’s dominating with petrol-electric hybrids. Sales of hybrids grew 16.1 per cent to now account for 7.6 per cent of the market. And 89 per cent of all hybrids bought last year wore a Toyota badge. A decent chunk of the remaining 8971 were from luxury offshoot Lexus.

• Chinese brands: Cars coming from China surged another 61 per cent in 2022. While much of it is down to Chinese-branded vehicles, such as LDV, GWM/Haval and newcomer BYD, having Tesla, Polestar, Volvo and others sourced from China has also boosted deliveries from the world’s most populous country.

• Kia Stinger: News that the Stinger is on its final fling has buyers rushing to get hold of the last affordable big-power rear-drive sports sedan. Sales surged 59 per cent for the year.

• Porsche: The performance-focused brand again had a bumper year, selling a record 5608 vehicles in 2022, up 26.6 per cent. Of those 77 per cent were SUVs and another 7.7 per cent the all-electric Taycan (which has buyers queuing to own it).

• Polestar: The EV-only newcomer managed a respectable 1524 sales in 2022, capturing 0.141 per cent of the market (and 1.3 per cent of the prestige segment). That may not sound like much, but to put it in perspective, consider the first-year sales of other then-newcomers: Skoda commanded a 0.081 per cent share in its first year on sale (818 cars in 2008), Opel 0.142 per cent (1610 cars in 2013) in its (mostly) first year, MG 0.050 per cent (600 cars in 2017) and Haval 0.060 per cent (710 cars in 2017).

• Mazda: The number-two brand is still a comfortable number two (behind Toyota), but sales slid 5.3 per cent, in turn diluting Mazda’s market share to 8.9 per cent, its lowest level since 2011.

• Toyota Camry: The once-dominant Toyota Camry has lost its top-selling medium car crown to an EV, the Tesla Model 3. Sure, the Camry trounced its traditional rivals – Mazda6 being the next best – but the more expensive Tesla Model 3 trounced the Camry late in the year to become the nation’s favourite sedan. The score? 10,877 to 9538.

• Volkswagen: The German brand struggled with stock to the point where its sales ended the year 24.1 per cent down – and about half what they were in 2015. Volkswagen says it will have a brighter 2023.

• Honda: The Japanese brand that once wanted to sell 100,000 vehicles annually this year managed just 14,215, in turn being outsold by Audi (14,732), Tesla (19,594), Suzuki (21,578) and LDV (16,269). That’s not only below par for a former big seller but is also 19.1 per cent down on its previous tally.

• McLaren: The supercar marque didn’t follow the growth lead of its prime rivals – Lamborghini (up 34 per cent) and Ferrari (up 4.6 per cent) – instead posting a decline of 31 per cent.

• Any non-Ranger Ford: 71 per cent of all Fords sold in Australia last year were the Ranger. The company discontinued some models (including Fiesta and Focus) and again struggled with SUVs (the Escape grew 30 per cent, but is a minnow in the mid-size SUV segment).

• Citroen: Sales may be up 69 per cent over 2021, but the French brand retailed only 296 cars last year. That’s almost one-quarter the vehicles that newcomer Cupra delivered in just half the year. Even Porsche sold almost twice as many of its 911 sports car.

• Jaguar: The years keep getting leaner for the quintessentially British luxury brand. Sales tumbled another 42.7 per cent to just 700 vehicles – well down on the high of 3008 set in 2016.

• Audi: It wasn’t long ago Audi was boldly talking of propelling itself beyond Mercedes-Benz and BMW for local sales. Instead, it’s dropped back to fourth place behind Tesla following a 7.9 per cent sales slide.

• Lexus: It’s been a tough 12 months for the luxury arm of Toyota, with sales down 23.7 per cent and Lexus being overtaken by Volvo to finish sixth in the prestige fight (Mercedes-Benz first, BMW second, Tesla third, Audi fourth, Volvo fifth, then Lexus). It didn’t help losing the IS mid-sizer or having stock shortages, but Lexus isn’t alone with its challenges.

• Jeep: In these SUV boomtimes the classic American 4x4 brand has struggled to hit the high notes locally. Sales dipped 14.2 per cent in 2022.

• Land Rover: The dedicated SUV brand has also struggled to take advantage of the boom in luxury and the boom in SUV, with sales down 32.7 per cent last year to just 4348 vehicles. That’s about one-third as many cars as Land Rover was selling in 2016 and 2017 – and drops the British brand below Porsche on the sales charts for the first time.

• Big-engined limousines: Upper-large cars priced above $100,000 dropped 15.6 per cent and only 530 were sold. It seems the market for large limos is fast drying up. The brightest light was the electric Mercedes-Benz EQS, which with 70 sales accounted for 13.2 per cent of all limousine sales.

• Most prestige brands: Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Jaguar, Lexus, Lotus, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz and Mini all went backwards on sales in 2022. Yet the overall luxury market inched up by 1.5 per cent. The difference? Tesla and Polestar; between them the prestige EV newcomers account for 17.6 per cent of luxury vehicle sales.

• Toyota LandCruiser: The much-hyped 300 Series has queues into the next postcode, but those queues aren’t helping the official sales figures, which were worse than 2021. Toyota managed 13,152 LandCruiser sales, down 8.4 per cent on the year before (which was mostly the older 200 Series).

• Hyundai: Outsold by sister brand Kia for the first time, it’s a tough sting for the brand that finished third on the sales charts between 2016 and 2021. Hyundai’s 2022 market share dipped with sales growth of just 0.6 per cent.

• City tiddlers: There are only two so-called micro cars still on the market – the Fiat 500 and Kia Picanto – and it seems Aussies aren’t too fussed for them. Sales dropped 33 per cent in 2022. Sales of light cars (the next size category up) also dropped by 2.7 per cent. And the once popular small cars priced below $40,000? They plummeted almost 20 per cent as buyers continued their gravitation towards SUVs.

• Sports cars: The arrival of the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GR86 wasn’t enough to slow the sports car decline, with the segment down 5.9 per cent. It didn’t help that the Ford Mustang (still the top seller) is in runout ahead of a new model. Blame it on the fickleness of two-door sales (they tend to rise when a new model lobs and drop once it’s out of fashion).