VFACTS April: Tesla rises to seventh

Tesla was Australia’s seventh best-selling auto brand in April, when the Tesla Model Y SUV and Model 3 sedan both finished inside the list of the top 10 most popular new vehicles.

This is unprecedented for a car company selling only EVs in the Aussie market on both counts – the highest position on the brand ladder and a monumental feat in individual model rankings.

With only two model lines currently offered in Australia, the American electric car marque sold 3676 EVs last month – the Model Y (2095) taking fourth place and the Model 3 (1581) 10th – to outperform MG, Nissan, Volkswagen, Subaru and others.

Over the first four months of 2023, Tesla has racked up 14,083 sales – almost half the total number of EVs sold in Australia across all brands for the 2022 calendar year (33,410) – to be eighth overall behind MG, while the Tesla Model 3 (8819) stands as the third most popular car in the nation, behind only the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux utes.

As a result, the Model 3 claims top billing as the number-one passenger car, running ahead of even best-selling SUVs such as the Toyota RAV4 (8049), and its continued strong performance alongside the Model Y cements Tesla as the undisputed premium brand in Australia.

Naturally, Tesla’s rise up the charts underscores healthy demand in the marketplace for electric cars, which across all brands last month totalled 6530 sales.

That was aided significantly by the BYD Atto 3, which found 1118 homes, meaning Tesla and BYD (both producing cars for Australia solely in China) accounted for almost three quarters (73.4%) of the industry’s total.

In overall terms, EVs made up 8.0 per cent of all new vehicle sales in April, which might still be a single-digit result but compares to a paltry 1.1 per cent in April last year.

Year to date, EVs are holding a 6.8 per cent share of the entire market, up from just 2.2 per cent at the same point in 2022, while electrified vehicles as a collective (including 21,693 hybrids and 2006 plug-in hybrids) are at 13.6 per cent, based on 47,625 sales.

The figures clearly demonstrate how the pendulum is slowly swinging toward a lower-emissions future that will gain further momentum when Australia finally introduces mandatory fuel-efficiency standards in the not-too-distant future, as confirmed by the federal government last month.

Putting things in perspective

As much as EVs are rightfully drawing most attention, booming sales for a couple of brands with a good supply of cars coming in from China should be tempered against the ongoing difficulties more established car-makers are experiencing with chronic stock shortages caused by delays at both local ports and production plants worldwide.

We recently shed light on this in our report on the current delivery times for many of Australia’s top-selling cars, and the effects of this are plain to see in the April sales figures released today.

Most obviously, market leader Toyota suffered another shocking sales downturn last month, plummeting 33.0 per cent compared to April 2022 to now find itself down 30.3 per cent for the year to date – and with a 15.1 per cent market share (down from 22.1%).

Toyota might not yet have an EV in the market, but its current predicament is due to severe supply constraints put on its ever-popular models, including two of the top three sellers in the market last month – HiLux (3526, down 21.5 per cent) and RAV4 (2198, -34,8%).

The Ford Ranger was number one in April with 3567 sales, extending its 2023 lead over HiLux, but the Blue Oval’s hugely popular new-generation ute was also down 0.4 per cent compared to April 2022 – when the previous model was in short supply before the series changeover.

If Ranger doesn’t fire, Ford is in trouble, with the ute accounting for 71.5 per cent of its total sales this year and the company revealing last month that it’s also abandoning the dominant mid-size SUV segment by axing the Ford Escape in the coming months.

Ford managed fifth position overall last month with 5047 sales, which was 1.5 per cent up on the corresponding month last year.

After Toyota, Mazda placed second with 6926 sales (-6.1%, and with the rare sight of no cars among the top 10 best-sellers) and Kia took third by maintaining its edge over sister brand Hyundai in fourth – 6200 sales (+0.3%) compared to 5732 (+3.2%).

After Ford, Mitsubishi (4440) held onto sixth position despite a 31.3 per cent sales slump for the month, just 764 units clear of Tesla in seventh on 3676.

MG experienced a rare double-digit monthly downturn, falling 27.4 per cent with 3463 sales to make eighth, while Nissan made a return to the top 10 table (3009, +46.8%) and Volkswagen similarly reasserted some of its traditional market strength (2957, +71.8%).

Isuzu Ute was close behind on 2904 sales (-4.2%) but maintains an edge over Nissan and VW in year-to-date terms with 10th position overall, while Subaru (2511, +52.7%) also holds ninth YTD.

On a broader scale, total industry sales of 82,137 units last month represented a 1.3 per cent increase over April 2022 and a return to positive territory after a 3.9 per cent fall in March.

That said, there are no longer signs of the big monthly gains of between 12 and 18 per cent recorded between August last year and January 2023, keeping the industry on tenterhooks as interest rates continue to rise and consumer confidence wavers as a result.

SUVs accounted for 56.0 per cent of sales in April, and light commercial vehicles 20.8 per cent, leaving passenger cars at 18.5 and heavy commercials at 4.7 per cent.

Government and business fleet sales increased by 8.1 and 2.9 per cent respectively, while rental sales were down 11.4 per cent.

Top 10 brands (2023 year to date):

Top 10 models (April 2023):

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