New car sales were weak in December. In fact, at just 7,209 they were the lowest since 2015 for a December month.
That means for all of 2024, just 87,571 new passenger cars were sold in the year, the lowest annual level since the pandemic interruptions. And prior to that since 2014.
Most sales in 2023 were NEVs (new energy vehicles, a set that includes EVs, plug-in hybrids, and independent petrol hybrids). But in a sinking market in 2024, internal combustion engined cars (ICE) reclaimed their majority.
| calendar ... | 2024 | share | 2023 | share |
| % | % | |||
| ICE | 46,318 | 52.9 | 51,279 | 46.3 |
| Electric-only cars (BEV) | 6,351 | 7.3 | 21,049 | 19.0 |
| Plug-in hybrids (PHEV) | 2,929 | 3.3 | 8,994 | 8.1 |
| Petrol hybrids (HEV) | 31,973 | 36.5 | 29,353 | 26.5 |
| Total new car sales | 87,571 | 100 | 110,675 | 100 |
It has been a year of substantial shifts as buyers seemed to shift away from full EVs, even plug-in hybrids, in favour of petrol hybrids if they wanted a NEV. Petrol hybrids were the only category to grow market share in 2024. ICE vehicles sales fell, but not by as much as the overall market.
Of course, the key distinguishing feature of 2024 was the ending of the Clear Car Discount subsidy by the taxpayer which was available until December 2023.
However, without the subsidy, the year ended with rising demand for petrol hybrids, driving the NEV category to more than a 60% share of the weak December market. Buyers do seem to be shifting to NEVs without the need for taxpayer incentives.
New vehicles sold
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94 Comments
Possibly because their viability is heavily tied to that of our wider existence. Without cheap and plentiful fossil fuels, many (most?) of us would be living in the dark and eating each other, the vast majority of items in your house would cease to exist. Including the BEV in the garage.
BEVs are a good symbolic sell though, because the connection between ones private vehicle and literally putting a hose dispensing fossil fuels into the filler port is a very simple distinction.
Just 19 of China’s 137 current electric car brands will be profitable by the end of the decade
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-11/less-than-20-chinese…
There's got to be some upside in running an authoritarian command economy.
I think just keep running your existing ICE in to the ground as long as you can…..
Why?
A. Best green option anyway….. (existing vehicle)
B. Each year you delay, BEV will become cheaper and better with a flow on impact to second hand ones……
C. Might become clearer which of the Chinese ones will survive so you can get parts for it.
After the 2011 tsunami, electricity generation in Japan took a real hit and the narrative from the government was to conserve electricity as much as possible.
I think this is still having an impact - certainly Toyota pushed an anti-BEV narrative for many years - so I'm not totally surprised by the lack of Japanese BEVs.
I think you mean BYD but like the rest of your comment filled with errors..
The 2024 BYD Sealion 6 plug-in hybrid (PHEV) medium SUV has earned a prestigious five-star safety rating from ANCAP (Australasian New Car Assessment Program) under its stringent 2023-2025 testing standards.
https://wolfstreet.com/2025/01/02/what-should-teslas-stock-be-worth-aut…
Musk toast in under 12 months
No surprises there with a swing back to ICE. Plenty of good new and used cars to choose from and if you look after your engine they just go and go until you are pretty much just bored with it. I will potentially look at an EV one day, they need to start making 1 or 2 seater sports cars where range is not an issue as you never do distance in them as you cannot carry anything away with you. Ideal for the commute to the office or a blast in the weekends at the track.
They’re coming. My project this year will be electric track car https://www.greatbritishsportscars.com/zeroev. But for urban commuting there’s nothing like a small electric EV. Fun to drive, recharge at home for price of a coffee (or free via solar when sun shines). No servicing.
Agree. As long as ICE is the primary power plant they’re simply an incremental improvement of that type. Some plug ins probably spend >50% of distance travelled on electric power, but spend that time carting heavy engine, gearbox and fuel tank around so compromised.
Its getting tired this narrative about Luxton being rich.
I for one think that to have a poor PM would be really dangerous in terms of corruption and the worse version of that: foreign interference.
I know that being rich does not rule it out completely though. There was a previous.....
aka as a temporary subsidy ended, as planned and as true for much of the World.
I am an avid EV driver, but the market lost its mojo after the limit of fast followers was reached. Charging infrastructure is still deficient. Worst I’ve encountered is Wellington/ Gaza, despite (or because? ) a Green Party mayor.
but the market lost its mojo after the limit of fast followers was reached.
I'd inclined to think this is the case, as many EVs today are significantly cheaper than they were while the subsidy was in place.
When's the next significant tipping point for the general market? Hard to say but most likely when the economics for most drivers is undisputable (i.e. a BEV with the same or better performance/range is cheaper to buy than ICE).
Agree re tipping point. Meeting those criteria are now very close (already passed in world’s biggest market, China, where EVs outsold ICE in 2024). In many other markets EVs now arguably matching ICE on price, usually with better performance. Range of course a function of how much battery capacity is fitted, but plenty of fairly ordinary EVs (Polestar 2, VW ID7, Tesla 3) now beating 600 km on WLTP combined cycle meaning 4-500 km highway or >600 km city real world. Bigger than most bladders, and 80+% of charging happens at home anyway
The full picture is more complicated than just purchase price and distance traveled per charge.
a) Do people have the money to buy anything new or second hand?
b) Road user charges need to be taken into account.
c) Power prices: will this green energy business result in the increase or falling of power prices. And that includes transmission as well.
d) Subsidies? Here or overseas. eg If Japan has subsidies, there will be more 2nd hand ones available here.
e) Penalties here or overseas. ie Penalties against ICEs.
f) Is it possible that the magnetic fields in EVs is high enough to be of concern?
g) More?
ICE are also cheaper today as they aren’t paying the dirty car duty.
I completely disagree with the argument that price is not a factor. If EV were cheaper and ICE were dearer (as would be the case with the clean car discount) I am 100% certain we would be buying more EV.
Spent a few days in wellington over Xmas, riding the electric buses a couple of times.
Smooth( though the torquey motors pu lled wheelspins in the wet on slopes ), quiet, and felt like we were having a low impact.well
patronized too. The time we took the van into town, it felt more of a hindrance in comparison, and cost us as much as the bus fare in parking.
Poor man's ev experience, but if the govt wanted to support ev, then financing electric public transport is probably more cost effective than subsidizing evs.
No way this govt is going to let common sense get in the way of dogmatic pettiness though.
Yes - public (i.e. mass transit) transport of any sort should be better for the environment than private and electric public transport so much so.
I'm being continuously told by a Tesla zealot that by 2030 we will all be using Robo-taxis so private ownership of cars will become a thing of the past. If it happens, on the strength of the Tesla Robo-taxi event in 2024, they won't be Tesla Robo-taxis.
NZ car market needs to include New and Used first registrations. We are an oddball because we import so many used vehicles from primarily Japan.
When you do this you see a very sad picture for EV adoption in NZ. To be clear, the only true EV is one that only has a battery (BEV). Every other vehicle that has an internal combustion engine in its drivetrain is an ICE vehicle.
For 2024, this is the breakdown for passenger vehicles for first registrations: -
Petrol: 88,994 48.06%
Hybrid: 75,666 40.86%
Diesel: 8,606 4.65%
BEV: 7,410 4.00%
PHEV: 4,513 2.44%
BEV vehicles are cheaper to purchase now than before the government rebate was removed.
RUC's for all vehicles whether by Petrol purchase or odometer measure has meant that all vehicles now pay for road maintenance and construction.
It's going to take a very long time to electrify our fleet with BEV at these current rates. It will take government mandates to achieve.
"NZ car market needs to include New and Used first registrations. We are an oddball because we import so many used vehicles from primarily Japan."
Dont the annual sales statistics include used imports?...I thought they were a measure of vehicles first registered in NZ for the year, not necessarily 'new'.
Unfortunately a lot of misinformation in this space so I’ll put in a few facts and then some opinions too.
1) studies show that the break even point of manufacturing emissions of a bev is only 2-3 years now. Particularly in a country like NZ with a clean grid. So it’s worse to keep using your old car. This is why cash for clunkers is a good program. New Zealand also has some terrible old cars because we had loose diesel laws and heaps of bad diesels on the road that are terrible polluters - old hilux, Pajero, etc.
2) EVs are 61X less likely to have a fire than ICE. And it’s only getting better from here with the LFP batteries
now some opinion
EVs make a lot of sense if you’re not a petrol head who loves motors. They deliver a better more power and smoother ride, they eliminate pollution in cities, they reduce the importation of oil, they drive more money back to our partially owned power companies, and at the moment they are pretty good value in NZ.
if your in the market for A car id seriously recommend checking out an ev along with whatever petrol model your looking at. A 2022 Tesla model 3 can be had for 37k, a 2018 Nissan leaf for 15k (great for an everyday run about), a 2023 BMW Ix3 for 60k, and a brand new 2024 Kia ev6 long range for 59k.
now yes you may not be able to tow your big boat with these. But for anything else, even road trips around most of the country the 400km plus range makes it fairly easy. And for the 1% of other trips there are always rental cars :-)
61 times less likely to catch fire ? That's good for a laugh. Lets just see how not only the batteries cause problems but the fast chargers start causing problems. Anything that demands high current is a major fire risk long term, that's just the way it is. People are going to demand faster and faster charging. There is no way I would charge an EV with it sitting in an internal garage.
Nonsense. How do you think electricity gets to your house or workplace? High current electricity has been all over the country, all over the world, for well over 100 years without being a major fire risk. Uninformed biased nonsense - perhaps a decent drive in a modern EV would help
High currents are avoided in the distribution network wherever possible by using high voltage and lower current to move power about, stepping it down to lower voltages close to the final point of use.
High currents lead to higher I²R losses and require bigger heavier conductors and switchgear.
Next time you are at a decent EV charger look about, chances are there is a transformer within 100m of the charger cabinets stepping 11kV down to 400V to avoid long high current runs.
Agree, was trying to keep it simple for financial website (I’m a geeky engineer well familiar with Ohm’s Law). My point stands - the currents used to charge EVs (<500A) are completely normal in distribution networks that have operated safely for longer than than any of our lifetimes. There is no unusual risk in charging EVs (less than exposed highly flammable liquid being pumped into petrol cars), and anyone who suggests otherwise is just scaremongering and spreading BS
Not really. The type of car, and stiffness of suspension, is a much bigger factor. I have petrol, diesel and electric - all go over bumps differently. The petrol is by far the worst over bumps but that’s because this particular car is designed to carve up the bends. The city-biased EV is much smoother despite being about the same weight
Uninterested,
What a bizarre comment. Of course EVs travel over speedbumps. We have had a Leaf for almost 4 years now and use it for as much of our local driving as possible. we regularly drive over speedbumps. It was bought secondhand as a Japanese import and the SOH of the battery was 83%. That has barely changed since then. Its range fully charged is only marginally less now.
You miss a few very important considerations.
1.- A very large cohort of New Zealanders can only afford a car worth between $5K and $20K. Heavily reliance on Japanese Imports.
2.- This cohort has needs for a larger car than a Leaf.
3.- This cohort tends to live in larger family or co-living (flatmates / shared house) situations and can have up to 4 or 5 cars per household (came to South or West Auckland and see car to house ratios).
4.- Volume of cars in each household not conducive to overnight trickle charging. (physically as well a financially when needing to split an electricity bill)
5.- This cohort is being forced into higher density housing, making car charging facilities at the house impossible (no off street parking).
6.- This cohort needs their cars as public transport is a joke (especially in Auckland - no trains for 6 weeks - busses run to hubs needing two or three bus changes to get anywhere).
7.- This cohort does not work in a CBD but in industrial parks dotted around the cities edge. (try getting public transport to an industrial park - especially for shift workers)
8- Your 2022 Tesla is still $20K over priced for this cohort. Maybe in another 4 years will it fit into the market to suit this cohort financial car affordability profile.
9- Your Leaf is too small to take a family to church and the beach on a Sunday. (tried getting granny and her walking stick into the back seat of a Leaf?).
10- It would be interesting to see a breakdown of car buying affordability to income ratio. I guess the volume of people who could afford a $60K electric car is a lot smaller than the cohort who can only afford a $5K to $20K car (of any motive power).
11- The new cars (not just electric) are way, way over specified for this cohort and no longer "fixable" by the average Joe Blog. This cohort can easily repair a cheap Camry (huge range of spares including ready to insert engines/transmissions - easily get to 350K kilometres before another cheap Japanese car replacement), but much harder to repair your always online and monitored BMW for example (loose your warranty for home repairs?).
Your 2nd "fact", isn't a fact, it's a totally shonky calculation with no basis in common sense.
Taking the number of [ICE/EV] cars sold in the prior year and dividing by the number of [ICE/EV] cars that caught fire is nonsense. It totally ignores the fact that the ICE fleet includes cars that are 30+ years old and many modified by idiots along the way, while the average age of EVs is probably about 5 years at most.
All cars are subject to a WOF check and there would be very few "modified by idiots" passing that muster.
Of more concern is the owners' "right to repair" being removed from new cars (void warranty unless factory repairs are done at a huge marked up expense). Especially so with ECU modules.
Even aged EV's are still beyond the price range of a large cohort in the population that can only afford $5K to $20K cars.
I think you are confusing my comments with someone else regarding fires. My comments was in regards affordability to a large cohort of vehicle users.
Ford Rangers are driven by another cohort in the population normally self employed or company owned service vehicles. Most I would say are leased.
Ford Rangers are not driven by the factory / fast food / service / etc. worker or those on minimum wages.
If WOF checks do not pick up non compliance cars that is a problem for the WOF system. I cant get mismatched tires through a check so it seems pretty robust. Biggest cause of fires are electrical and mostly due to incorrect fuse usage. True the WOF does not check fuses for correct rating. Maybe that could be added to the checks they do?
Sadly you are no longer a pragmatist but wondering into a sub thread you did not bother to read and comprehend. Hello, wake up and be coqnitive of your surroundings.
This was my post seeing it is hard to scroll up;
You miss a few very important considerations.
1.- A very large cohort of New Zealanders can only afford a car worth between $5K and $20K. Heavily reliance on Japanese Imports.
2.- This cohort has needs for a larger car than a Leaf.
3.- This cohort tends to live in larger family or co-living (flatmates / shared house) situations and can have up to 4 or 5 cars per household (came to South or West Auckland and see car to house ratios).
4.- Volume of cars in each household not conducive to overnight trickle charging. (physically as well a financially when needing to split an electricity bill)
5.- This cohort is being forced into higher density housing, making car charging facilities at the house impossible (no off street parking).
6.- This cohort needs their cars as public transport is a joke (especially in Auckland - no trains for 6 weeks - busses run to hubs needing two or three bus changes to get anywhere).
7.- This cohort does not work in a CBD but in industrial parks dotted around the cities edge. (try getting public transport to an industrial park - especially for shift workers)
8- Your 2022 Tesla is still $20K over priced for this cohort. Maybe in another 4 years will it fit into the market to suit this cohort financial car affordability profile.
9- Your Leaf is too small to take a family to church and the beach on a Sunday. (tried getting granny and her walking stick into the back seat of a Leaf?).
10- It would be interesting to see a breakdown of car buying affordability to income ratio. I guess the volume of people who could afford a $60K electric car is a lot smaller than the cohort who can only afford a $5K to $20K car (of any motive power).
11- The new cars (not just electric) are way, way over specified for this cohort and no longer "fixable" by the average Joe Blog. This cohort can easily repair a cheap Camry (huge range of spares including ready to insert engines/transmissions - easily get to 350K kilometres before another cheap Japanese car replacement), but much harder to repair your always online and monitored BMW for example (loose your warranty for home repairs?).
To be honest most people cannot follow the threads on here its a total mess. The Facebook idea is better, your reply automatically comes up with who you are replying to. Sometimes I have replied to someone and it turns up 2 or 3 pages down, hopeless so I put their handle in first.
My post was in response to this post which was more about new car sales and second hand car imports.
however your right that for some cohorts it doesn’t make sense and these people shouldn’t be punished. And under the old clean car program most weren’t as they are buying second or 3rd hand cars.
The main point of my post was to lament the removal of the subsidy, but also say that despite the negative news and people’s strange defending of petrol cars, for a lot of people evs make sense now.
I wish clean cars had remained. It should have been tweaked and made tax neutral rather than stopped. Getting polllution out of our cities and driving down oil imports made sense.
people are emotional beasts and getting anything free or tax reduced from the government really helped drive behaviour in a way that was positive for our country.
Luckily Tesla is not just a car company. Although currently, only 12% Tesla income is due to power solutions, the proportion of income due to this market has been increasing prior to the current lil in EV sales.
Joe Biden’s 100% tariff on Chinese cars won’t have helped Tesla, but the World’s a big place. Yes Biden, who would have thunk.
Personally, I couldn’t give a cr*p what happens to Tesla, but we need to bear in mind that narratives about Tesla will be increasingly politically motivated.
I had a phev but got rid of it when I realised how much it was depreciating. Back to petrol and while I miss the electric car experience I am enjoying the thought that what I drive now will be easy to move on. People who drive electric cars in NZ currently are going to get a fright when they try to sell them. Currently I see new electric cars with 33 per cent discounts and they are not selling. What will they be worth when the sucker who buys them drives them off the lot.
Some people just love to drive. Anyone still driving a manual is a true "Driver" and an enthusiast. Hopefully when they start making BEV sports cars they will have a manual gearbox option. Unfortunately the sports car ICE market is being left with the likes of Porsche as the only option and they are now unbelievably expensive to the point I couldn't justify buying one now even if I had a couple of million in the bank.
EVs don't need multispeed gearboxes as they aren't limited to the poor speed torque relationship of an ICE. Some extreme performance EVs use a 2 spd gearbox to extend the speed limit of the car beyond where the electric motor would mechanically disintegrate with a single speed box.
At best you will get software faked gearchanges like the Ioniq N EV. No manufacturer is going to put all those unreliable expensive bits into a car when they are not needed.
Some tried like Porsche with the PDK transmission and many Porsche owners hated it so they bought back the manual. Certain manufacturers are retaining the manual for performance cars due to demand. There are so many boring cars out there now with auto transmissions but there is definitely still a market for performance manuals. Toyota started the whole "GR" thing with manuals at the fore, so has Honda with the Type R. Still cars around for petrol heads but they are getting expensive.
If you kept the PHEV for ten or more years it would hardly have mattered what the rate of depreciation was.
I've got a 12 year old BEV (not a Leaf I might add) and while it was secondhand when I bought it, I have no intention of selling it for a long. Battery appears to have had no degradation at all.
If I had kept it for ten years it would have been worth nothing and I doubt it would have been still reliable. It’s cheaper to have an efficient petrol car than have a BEV or PHEV. The extra cost of buying fuel is still cheaper than the high insurance, depreciation and running costs of electric cars. And you have a spare and no range anxiety and delays at public charging stations ( if they are actually working.)
I’m very open to the idea of driving an EV, but I still can’t find anything cheaper to own than my Toyota Camry.
Cheap to buy because nobody wants an ex-rental, base model sedan. Paid for in cash while I would have had to finance a decent EV. Surprisingly good on gas for my open road running, and costs very little to service.
210,000km now and outside of regular servicing and tyres the total cost of repairs has been $120 for a worn tie rod end.
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