Sales of both new and used imports suffered in August as the Auckland lockdown took its toll. But that didn't affect sales of new energy vehicles (NEVs), which now account for nearly 17% of all new car sales

August sales of new vehicles were weak. The Auckland lockdown didn't help.

This comes after a strong July which recorded sales that were higher than the same month a year go.

But in August, there is considerable backsliding. Sales of new passenger vehicles were down -16.8% from the same month in 2019. For commercial vehicles, the decline was -13.8%.

Both categories recorded steep declines from July 2020 as well.

The annual rate of new car sales is now below 90,000 and that is the first time it has been this low since 2014.

The market misses rental car sales. There were only 56 sold in August, although there were another 140 commercial utes added to rental fleets. In August 2019 there were more than 1,200 vehicles sold into rental fleets with very few in the commercial category.

The passenger category continues to be dominated by SUVs, but there has been a general shift to smaller vehicles. 73% of all sales were SUVs in August 2020 compared with 67% in August 2019.

Interestingly, sales of new energy vehicles are not showing decline. Last month there were 129 pure electric vehicles, 60 PHEV’s and 1,013 hybrid vehicles sold for the month. That is a total of 1,202 for August or 16.9% of all car sales. In July there were 1,204 of new energy vehicle sales, being 90 pure electric vehicles, 69 PHEV’s and 1,045 hybrid vehicles.

But sales of used imports are suffering like new cars, only worse. Used import car sales were down more than -26% in August from the same month a year ago, dropping the annual sales rate back to 2014 levels as well