VFACTS February: Ford Ranger out in front

The Australian-developed 2023 Ford Ranger is on track to end the seven-year reign of the Toyota HiLux as Australia’s top-selling new vehicle, securing another monthly win on the sales charts in February to now stand more than 2000 units clear of the pack.

This is the third successive monthly sales crown for Ranger, and its fourth in the past five months, setting the Blue Oval brand’s ute up for its best year ever as the long trail of orders are fulfilled and with a backdrop of continuing supply constraints for Toyota and other leading brands – including Ford.

Despite its own waiting lists for Wildtrak and Raptor models out to 12 months or more, Ranger secured 4473 sales last month (+46.3%) compared to 4131 for HiLux (+15%), taking its year-to-date total to 9222 units against the defending champ’s 7184 in the red corner.

The Tesla Model 3 also continued its strong form with another podium position in February, delivering 2671 examples of the electric mid-size sedan to hold third overall for the year to date – clear of the most popular SUVs and passenger cars, and ahead of Mercedes-Benz as the undisputed market-leading prestige brand, for now at least.

With no shortage of demand for the Tesla Model Y SUV too (but, again, with limited supplies), the US brand is holding ninth position overall in the fluctuating marketplace, where the likes of Volkswagen and Nissan aren’t found among the top 10 in 2023 thus far.

They’re not alone as top-tier brands riding the global car industry rollercoaster, with last month’s results including double-digit declines for the market leader Toyota (14,332, -31.4%), long-time market bridesmaid Mazda (7667, -12.7%) and the well-regarded Mitsubishi (5500, -29.6%).

Toyota’s market share this year has slumped to 16.1 per cent – down from 22.5 per cent a year ago – amid Ford’s resurgence (it took third place last month, up 30.6% to give it a 38.4% rise YTD) and solid performances from the ‘new guard’.

We’re referring to Kia here, which found 6000 sales last month (+2.0%) to secure fourth position and maintain its advantage over its traditionally dominant Korean affiliate Hyundai (fifth, 5504, -1.6%), as well as Chinese brand MG, which with 4363 units (+15.8%) was just four sales shy of snaring sixth spot from Mitsubishi.

MG had two models among the top 10 bestsellers last month – ZS (seventh, 2047) and MG3 (10th, 1622) – and anecdotally looks to be profiting nicely from the industry-wide 18.1 per cent uptick in rental car sales in Australia this year.

That’s a reflection of Australians not only wanting to buy new cars but travel domestically, with all the action in rental fleets currently with SUVs (+59.3%) rather than passenger cars and utes (-21.1% and -3.0% respectively).

MG’s tally also took a significant chunk of the 13,625 vehicles sold last month that were sourced from China, which was enough to overtake Korea (12,246) to make it the third highest country of origin behind Japan (24,805) and Thailand (18,557).

Another standout performer in February was Subaru (4054, +28.7%), which continued its recent string of positive monthly results. It even stole bragging rights for the nation’s top-selling large SUV with the Subaru Outback (1233), which outclassed the Toyota Prado and Kluger, among others. Forester (1709) was also ninth overall.

Rounding out the top 10 were a couple of new-age and old-school brands with only two models apiece – Tesla in ninth with 3516 sales split between Model 3 (2671) and Model Y (845), and Isuzu Ute in 10th via D-MAX (1931) and MU-X (1225).

Beyond that table, notable results include Volkswagen on 2930 sales (+65.9%), Nissan on 2573 (-8.8%), Chinese group GWM/Haval on 2353 (+188.4%) and Audi outpointing Mercedes-Benz and BMW with 1680 sales (+126.4%) compared to 1507 for Benz (+21.0%) and 1047 for Beemer (-47.1%).

It total, the industry recorded 86,878 new vehicle sales in February, which is only 1.8 per cent up on the corresponding month last year – the best second-month result since 2019 but only modest year-on-year growth considering rampant demand for popular models still evident in the marketplace. 

For the year to date, the market is 6.5 per cent ahead of 2022, with 171,751 sales.

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) CEO Tony Weber pointed to ongoing growth of battery-electric vehicles as evidence of fast-shifting buyer preferences.

There were 5932 EV sales recorded last month, accounting for 6.8 per cent of the market. Throw in hybrid and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models and the combined ‘zero/low-emissions’ segment accounted for 13.9 per cent with 12,102 units shifted.

Most of the attention is on Tesla, soaking up 59.2 per cent of those EV sales, but note that BYD sold 770 examples of the Atto 3 in February – more than the Nissan X-TRAIL, MG HS, GWM Haval H6, Renault Koleos and a host of other mid-size SUVs.

“Growing sales of electric vehicles proves that where a battery-electric product exists which suits the driving habits, needs and finances of Australian motorists, they will purchase these vehicles,” said Weber.

“The number of low-emission vehicle sales demonstrates that there is an appetite among Australians for environmentally friendly vehicles.

“However, if we wish to accelerate this transition to a broader range of consumers in all parts of the country, Australia needs to adopt a fuel efficiency standard,” he said.

Top 10 brands (2023 year to date):

Top 10 models (February 2023):

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